1  HE  AMERICAN  BOOKS 


UC-NRLF 


1 


k-    U   i_         LJ     f     C 


'.^!)*' 


THE 
AMERICAN 
COLLEGE 


I 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/americancollegeOOsharrich 


THE  AMERICAN  BOOKS 

A  LIBRARY  OF  GOOD  CITIZENSHIP 


"  The  American  Books  *'  are  designed  as  a 
series  of  authoritative  manuals,  discussing 
problems  of  interest  in  America  to-day. 


THE  AMERICAN  BOOKS 

THE  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  BY  ISAAC  SHARPLESS 

THE  AMERICAN  INDIAN  BY  CHARLES  A.  EASTMAN 

THE  COST  OF  LIVING  BY  FABIAN  FRANKLIN 

THE  AMERICAN  NAVY  BY  REAR-ADMIRAL   FRENCH 

E.  CHADWICK,  U.  S.  N. 

MUNICIPAL  FREEDOM  BY  OSWALD  RYAN 

A  HISTORY  OF  AMERICAN  LITERATURE    BY  LEON  KELLNER 
(translated   from   THB   GERMAN   BY  JULIA   FRANKLIN) 

SOCIALISM  IN  AMERICA  BY  JOHN  MACY 

THE  DRAMA  IN  AMERICA  BY  CLAYTON  HAMILTON 

THE  UNIVERSITY  MOVEMENT  BY  IRA  REMSEN 

THE  AMERICAN  SCHOOL  BY  WALTER  S.  HINCHMAN 

{For  more  extended  notice  of  the  series,  see  the  last  pages 
0/  this  book.) 


The  American  Booh 

The 
American  College 


BY 

ISAAC  SHARPLESS 

President  0/  Haverford  College 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW   YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
191S 


Copyright,  191 5,  hy  ' 
DOUBLEDAY,    PaGE    &   CoMPANY 

All  rights  reserved^  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  languages^ 

including  the  Scandinavian 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

Isaac  Sharpless  was  born  in  Chester  County, 
Pennsylvania,  December  i6,  1848.  Graduat- 
ing from  Westtown  School,  he  subsequently  at- 
tended the  Lawrence  Scientific  School  of  Harvard 
University,  from  which  he  received  a  diploma 
in  1873.  His  early  interests  were  in  teaching 
mathematics  and  astronomy;  since  then  he  has 
devoted  special  attention  to  the  science  of  edu- 
cation and  to  the  political  and  social  movements 
of  his  neighborhood;  in  both  these  spheres  he 
has  taken  a  prominent  part.  From  Westtown 
School  he  was  called  to  Haverford  College  as  Pro- 
fessor of  Mathematics  in  1875.  In  1884  he 
became  Dean;  since  1887  he  has  been  President. 

Dr.  Sharpless  holds  honorary  degrees  from 
Hob  art  College,  Swarthmore  College,  and  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania.  His  pubHcations 
include,  besides  several  text-books  on  mathe- 
matics and  astronomy,  "A  Quaker  Experiment 
in  Government,"  "  Two  Centuries  of  Pennsyl- 
vania History,"  "  Quakerism  and  Politics."    He 


VI  Biographical  Note 

is  regarded  as  a  leading  authority  on  Penn- 
sylvania colonial  history.  Besides  these  books, 
he  has  published  "  English  Education  " — the 
result  of  a  year,  1 890-1,  spent  in  England  study- 
ing the  methods  of  the  EngHsh  schools  and 
universities.  He  is  a  member  of  the  Council  of 
the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania. 


PREFACE 

The  object  of  this  little  book  is  to  give  to  the 
general  reader  a  fair  idea,  hiding  neither  blem- 
ishes nor  virtues,  of  that  peculiarly  national 
institution,  the  American  college,  as  distinct 
from  the  university  and  technological  school. 
This  college  has  no  exact  counterpart  in  the 
educational  systems  of  other  countries.  It 
has  grown  up  partly  perhaps  as  the  result  of 
certain  accidents  of  history,  but  mainly  because 
it  satisfied  peculiar  needs  and  conditions  of 
American  life.  Its  lack  of  fitness  to  articulate 
with  schools  of  other  grades  has  often  been 
urged  against  it,  and  its  extinction  from  the 
system  has  been  prophesied  and  advocated. 
But  it  seems  to  retain  its  hold  upon  its  patrons 
with  undiminished  vigor,  and  there  are  few 
signs  of  any  lack  of  prosperity  in  its  best  repre- 
sentatives. It  undoubtedly  has  had  and  will 
have  a  large  influence  upon  national  life  and 
character,  and  while  it  probably  would  not, 
vii 


viii  Preface 

just  as  it  is,  find  a  place  in  a  system  created  anew 
to  suit  ideal  conditions,  it  is  so  firmly  rooted 
that  the  future  tendency  will  be  rather  to 
strengthen  it  and  adapt  it  to  the  new  wants 
which  are  certain  to  arise.  The  American 
college  is  not  likely  to  be  crowded  out  of  its 
niche  between  the  high  school  and  the  univer- 
sity, though  this  fate  may  await  certain  of 
its  weaker  members.  It  has  been  the  case  in 
Germany  that  the  college  has  disappeared,  and 
the  secondary  schools  keep  the  boys  and  girls 
till  they  are  ready  for  the  highly'  specialized 
work  of  the  universities.  While  this  may  hap- 
pen in  America,  it  does  not  seem  probable  at 
the  present  time. 

A  sketch  of  the  growth  of  the  system  may 
throw  light  upon  its  ability  to  resist  the  same 
tendency  here. 

A  brief  bibhography  will  show  some  of  the 
sources  from  which  the  material  of  the  book 
has  been  derived.  The  author,  however,  has 
for  years  been  living  with  the  subject,  and  has 
had  the  advantage  of  intercourse  with  many 
collegiate  friends  of  better  judgment  and  wider 
information  than  himself.  He  cannot  hope 
that  his  statements  of  facts,  still  less  his  opin- 
ions, will  go  unchallenged,  but  the  book  may  be 


Preface  ix 

something   of   a    way-mark    in  the  history  of 
a  rapidly  developing  movement. 

I.  S. 
Haver  ford,  Pa. 
November  y  19 14. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.  Historyofthe  American  College      .  3 

II.  College  Administration  ....  44 

III.  The  Courses  of  Study     ....  94 

IV.  Student  Life 135 

V.  The  Function  of  the  College      .      .  175 

Brief  Bibliography 213 

Index 217 


THE  AMERICAN  COLLEGE 


CHAPTER  I 

HISTORY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLLEGE 

The  early  American  colleges  were  founded  by 
men  who  had  no  model  but  the  EngHsh  colleges 
from  which  they  came.  The  new  world  schools 
were  products  of  the  inextinguishable  love  of 
learning  and  the  belief  in  its  necessity  for  both 
State  and  Church,  which  filled  the  minds  of  the 
EngHshmen  of  the  Puritan  Age.  The  strongest 
stimulus  was  at  first  the  need  of  the  church  for 
educated  ministers,  and  those  bodies  which  did 
not  strongly  feel  this  need  were  the  slowest 
to  take  up  higher  education.  In  time  political, 
industrial,  and  other  secular  motives  came  to 
the  aid  of  the  ecclesiastical  impulse,  and  finally 
almost  engulfed  it. 

The  growing  love  of  freedom  of  the  new  world 
found  its  best  expression  in  the  lives  and  utter- 
ances of  college  men.  While  the  subject  matter 
of  the  curricula  seemed  to  have  little  relation  to 
the  demands  of  a  pioneer  and  experimental 
age,  the  training  resulted  in  the  creation  of  a 

3 


4 '  -V   .  '     :The  American  College 

\:<:>'  w  :l,  :  •  \,,. 

line  of  colonial  and  Revolutionary  fathers  most 
admirably  fitted  to  meet  and  solve  its  problems. 
Without  this  leadership  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
the  early  American  attempt  at  nation-making 
could  have  succeeded.  At  the  best  a  very  differ- 
ent product  would  have  resulted. 

Learning  easily  perpetuates  itself.  They  who 
have  it  will  desire  it  for  their  children.  It 
was  well  for  the  country  that  the  fathers  did  not 
allow  a  generation  to  pass  without  giving  the 
children  a  chance  to  have  something  of  their 
own  opportunities.  Once  engrafted  upon  the 
Hfe  of  the  nation  it  was  sure  to  grow.  The  mag- 
nificent zeal  and  the  vast  provision  for  higher 
education  which  we  see  to-day  we  largely  owe 
to  our  pioneer  ancestors  who  in  the  midst  of 
the  struggles  for  a  living  under  crude  conditions 
found  the  time  and  the  motive  to  institute  a 
spiritual  movement  of  tremendous  significance. 

Colonial  Colleges 

HARVARD 

Harvard  College  was  founded  in  1636  by  a 
vote  of  the  "General  Court  of  the  Colony  of 
Massachusetts  Bay/'  which  agreed  "to  give 
400  Pounds  toward  a  School  or  College."  Two 
years  later  John  Harvard,  a  clergyman  who  had 


History  of  the  American  College  5 

been  a  year  in  the  colony,  died  and  left  to  the  new 
school  one  half  his  property  and  a  library  of  300 
volumes.  These  riches  enabled  it  to  open  at  once, 
and  it  took  the  name  of  its  greatest  benefactor. 

In  1643  an  old  account  explains  the  purpose 
of  the  foundation:  "After  God  had  carried  us 
safe  to  New  England  and  we  had  builded  our 
houses,  provided  necessaries  for  our  livelihood, 
rear'd  convenient  places  for  God's  worship,  and 
settled  the  civil  government,  one  of  the  next 
things  we  longed  for  and  looked  after  was  to 
advance  learning  and  perpetuate  it  to  posterity; 
dreading  to  leave  an  illiterate  ministry  to  the 
churches  when  our  present  ministers  shall  lie 
in  the  dust." 

The  principal  object  of  the  college  was  frankly 
theological.  The  settlers  had  among  their 
number  learned  ministers  who  had  degrees  from 
the  English  universities.  These  institutions 
would  henceforth  be  closed  to  them,  and  if  the 
standards  were  to  be  maintained  they  must 
keep  up  their  own  supply.  The  curriculum 
was  prepared  largely  with  respect  to  this  pur- 
pose, but  others  than  divinity  students  who 
were  ambitious  for  a  similar  training  were  ad- 
mitted, and  Harvard  College  became  the  centre 
of  the  intellectual  life  of  the  colony. 


6  The  American  College 

The  number  of  students  during  the  first  half 
century  of  its  existence  probably  never  ex- 
ceeded twenty,  but  upon  this  little  group  was 
expended  much  mental  and  spiritual  care.  The 
President,  a  learned  as  well  as  a  godly  man,  was 
sometimes  the  sole  teacher,  sometimes  a  tutor 
aided  him.  But  the  aristocracy  of  scholarship 
of  Massachusetts  gathered  around  the  little 
college,  and  a  steady  stream  of  learned  men  came 
out  from  it. 

John  Harvard  was  a  graduate  of  Emmanuel 
College,  Cambridge.  Of  the  one  hundred  uni- 
versity men  who  came  to  New  England  between 
1620  and  1640  about  seventy  were  from  Cam- 
bridge, and  a  goodly  number  from  Emmanuel. 
This  college  was  Puritan  from  its  origin  in  1583. 
The  Calvinists  of  England  made  it  their  head- 
quarters, and  not  a  few  of  the  New  England 
colonists  had  their  inspiration  and  education 
within  its  walls.  To  found  a  new  Emmanuel 
in  the  new  country,  to  maintain  its  theology 
and  its  traditions,  its  rigid  Calvinism  and  its 
devotion  to  human  rights,  its  demand  that  a 
commonwealth  must  be  godly  and  its  religion 
orthodox,  that  dangerous  heresies  must  be 
crushed  and  the  truth  upheld  by  the  civil  power, 
this  was  the  spirit  of  the  Harvard  of  the  first 


History  of  the  American  College         7 

generation.  With  varying  ideals  and  methods 
to  suit  the  age  and  the  denomination,  Harvard 
may  be  said  to  be  the  precursor  of  a  long  line 
of  small  colleges  which,  if  less  professional  in 
aim,  have  felt  it  part  of  their  mission  to  main- 
tain and  promulgate  religious  truth  along  with 
mental  training  and  sound  knowledge. 

It  was  probably  in  the  minds  of  the  Harvard 
founders  to  gather  around  the  little  college 
other  colleges  of  coordinate  grade  after  the 
fashion  of  the  Enghsh  universities.  They  had 
no  other  model.  But  succeeding  benefactors 
instead  of  creating  new  colleges  strengthened 
the  original  institution.  It  grew  constantly 
larger.  New  foundations  were  created  in  other 
parts  of  the  country,  and  were  independent  in 
their  powers.  So  the  English  type  of  a  group 
of  colleges  closely  related  in  function  and  local- 
ity was  departed  from,  and  the  American  school 
of  higher  learning  became  largely  a  type  of 
itself.  Had  some  one  about  the  year  1700 
erected  in  Cambridge  another  college  under  the 
same  general  government,  but  standing  for 
a  slightly  different  idea  in  education  or  religion, 
and  had  the  example  been  followed  by  others, 
a  university  on  the  English  plan  with  a  cen- 
tral degree-giving  authority  would  have  resulted. 


8  The  American  College 

But  for  good  or  ill  each  college  in  America  is 
independent  of  the  others,  grants  its  own  de- 
grees, and  sets  its  own  standards. 

By  the  year  1700  the  college  had  become 
liberalized  both  in  politics  and  religion.  Its 
growth  in  numbers  was  slow  and  its  teaching 
force  remained  small.  There  were  fifteen  grad- 
uates in  1700;  in  1770,  thirty-four,  and  in  1800, 
forty-seven.  It  identified  itself  with  the  Amer- 
ican cause  in  the  Revolution.  Besides  the 
President,  its  three  professors  during  the  latter 
part  of  the  century  were  those  of  divinity, 
mathematics,  and  foreign  languages.  Latin, 
Greek,  Hebrew,  philosophy,  oratory,  history, 
and  a  little  natural  science  were  the  subjects 
studied,  and  were  required  of  all.  The  addi- 
tion of  professional  schools  and  the  establish- 
ment of  Harvard  University  were  of  later  date. 

During  colonial  days  the  published  list  of 
students  was  arranged  in  the  order  of  the  social 
and  political  standing  of  their  families.  It  was 
not  till  about  1770  that  this  was  changed  to 
an  alphabetical  order. 

WILLIAM   AND    MARY 

While  the  Virginia  College  represented  a 
different  phase  of  Christian  theology  and  church 


History  of  the  American  College         9 

government,  it  was  in  its  avowed  purposes 
equally  ecclesiastical.  The  charter  of  1693 
gave  as  its  objects:  "That  the  church  of  Vir- 
ginia may  be  furnished  with  a  seminary  of 
Ministers  of  the  Gospel,  and  that  the  youth 
may  be  properly  educated  in  good  manners, 
and  that  the  Christian  faith  may  be  propagated 
among  the  western  Indians  to  the  glory  of 
Almighty  God."  Then  it  indicated  the  sub- 
jects to  be  studied:  "divinity,  philosophy, 
languages,  and  other  good  arts  and  sciences." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  studies  related  to  law  and 
politics  were  more  prominent  from  the  start 
than  theology,  and  the  college  produced  a  few 
learned  divines  of  the  Episcopal  Church  and  an 
unusual  number  of  men  of  prominence  in  the 
state.  Three  Presidents  of  the  United  States — 
Jefferson,  Monroe,  and  Tyler — ^were  educated 
there.  So  were  five  of  the  signers  of  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  from  Virginia,  a  large 
proportion  of  the  Virginia  Representatives  in 

ithe  Continental  Congress  and  other  Revolu- 
tionary bodies,  and  the  great  Chief  Justice  of 
the  United  States,  John  Marshall;  these  date 
back  their  enthusiasm  and  training  to  this 
centre  of  patriotic  sentiment,  the  little  college 
at  Williamsburg. 


lo  The  American  College 

By  charter  and  legislation  it  received  consid- 
erable money  directly,  including  the  fees  of  the 
surveyor-general's  office  and  one  penny  per 
pound  on  all  tobacco  exported  from  Virginia 
and  Maryland.  It  therefore  during  its  early 
history  went  through  none  of  the  financial  suf- 
fering of  the  Massachusetts  college.  Through 
the  eighteenth  century  it  was  easily  the  leading 
Institution  of  Virginia.  But  endowments  did 
not  flow  into  it  as  they  did  to  the  northern 
colleges.  Until  the  Civil  War  it  had,  however, 
an  important  place,  though  rival  competitors 
took  some  of  its  patronage.  When  in  this  conflict 
its  buildings  were  burned  and  its  constituency 
impoverished,  its  resources  were  almost  wholly 
cut  off*.  Its  little  endowment  of  less  than 
$150,000  was  insufficient  to  sustain  it,  and  it 
sank  relatively  in  importance.  The  state  has 
subsidized  it  rather  as  a  normal  school,  how- 
ever, than  a  college. 

YALE 

Yale  College  owed  its  origin  to  the  same  im- 
pulse that  founded  Harvard,  now  tempered 
and  liberalized  by  sixty-five  years  of  develop- 
ment. Two  Harvard  men  in  1701  decided  that 
the  time  had  come  for  a  second  New  England 


History  of  the  American  College         ii 

college,  and  invited  a  meeting  in  New  Haven. 
Each  brought  a  bundle  of  books,  and  on  this 
endowment  a  charter  was  secured.  For  a  num- 
ber of  years  the  Collegiate  Institute,  as  it  was 
called,  had  a  precarious  existence.  The  number 
of  students  was  small  and  they  appear  to  have 
waited  on  the  convenience  of  the  rector  where 
it  pleased  him  to  reside.  There  was  no  money 
endowment  and  no  building,  the  main  resource 
being  the  fees  of  students.  Several  towns 
sought  to  have  the  college  within  their  borders, 
and  it  was  not  till  1717  that  it  permanently 
went  to  New  Haven.  About  this  time  EUhu 
Yale  began  his  benefactions.  He  was  not  a 
college  man  nor  a  clergyman,  but  was  interested 
in  the  general  cause  of  education.  He  sent 
over  from  England  valuable  goods  to  be  sold 
for  the  college  which  yielded  some  £  600.  About 
the  same  time  the  first  building  was  erected — a 
wooden  structure  which  was  library,  chapel, 
schoolroom,  and  dormitory  for  some  forty  stu- 
dents. 

It  was  chartered  as  Yale  College  in  1745. 
Through  all  the  colonial  days  it  worked  along 
as  a  small  college  with  very  close  paternal  rela- 
tions between  the  teachers  and  students.  In 
1770  there  were  about   100  students,   and  in 


12  The  American  College 

i8cx),  217.  Rigid  rules  governing  student  con- 
duct, especially  on  the  part  of  the  freshman, 
were  enforced.  By  the  end  of  the  century 
there  were  four  teachers  besides  the  President. 
Its  students  were  being  trained  in  the  studies  of 
the  day,  the  ancient  languages  being  of  course 
the  mainstay  of  the  curriculum. 

The  War  of  the  Revolution  again  scattered 
the  college.  Like  most  of  the  Congregational 
leaders  of  New  England,  its  officials  warmly 
sympathized  with  the  American  cause,  though 
they  stuck  to  their  post  of  duty  as  instructors 
in  the  different  towns  into  which  the  students 
could  be  collected.  It  was  about  the  year 
i8cx)  that  Yale  College  entered  upon  the  great 
development  in  resources  and  numbers  which 
made  it  a  national  institution.  The  depart- 
ments of  medicine,  theology,  and  law  were 
established  early  in  the  century,  though  it  was 
not  till  1886  that  it  took  the  title  of  Yale 
University. 

PRINCETON 

Harvard  and  Yale  were  established  under 
Congregational  influence,  and  William  and 
Mary  under  Episcopal.  The  Presbyterians 
felt  the  same  desire  for  learned  ministers  of  the 


History  of  the  American  College     .    13 

Gospel,  and  needed  them  even  more;  for  a 
large  number  of  emigrants  from  the  north  of 
Ireland,  commonly  called  Scotch-Irish,  leaving 
behind  them  the  settled  portions  of  the  eastern 
seaboard,  had  pressed  for  the  frontier,  and  by 
their  militant  aggressiveness  were  becoming  a 
strong  factor  in  the  colonial  Hfe.  Many  of 
them  were  uneducated,  though  in  general  they 
felt  a  strong  respect  for  education,  and  almost 
always  estabHshed  a  little  school  in  the  woods 
alongside  their  church.  Their  numbers  were 
great  and  they  had  not  as  the  Puritans  any 
large  supply  of  university  men  coming  from  the 
English  universities. 

This  need  was  attempted  to  be  in  part  sup- 
plied by  William  Tennent,  who  was  the  pastor 
of  a  Presbyterian  Church  in  eastern  Pennsyl- 
vania. He  had  sons  worthy  of  following  their 
father's  career,  and  by  his  influence  had  drawn 
around  him  a  few  other  young  men  to  whom  he 
was  earnest  to  give  instruction  in  divinity  and 
languages.  He  started  about  1730  the  "Log 
College"  in  Bucks  County,  Pennsylvania,  and 
himself  was  the  only  teacher.  After  a  decade 
or  more  Tennent  died  and  the  Log  College 
disappeared,  but  it  had  developed  in  the  minds 
of  his  church  a  desire  for  a  supply  of  learned 


14    .  The  American  College 

ministers.  The  fruition  came  in  1748  in  a 
college  in  New  Jersey  to  carry  on  the  work. 
Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics,  logic  and 
rhetoric,  a  little  astronomy  and  mental  phi- 
losophy, with  a  profound  study  of  the  Bible,  in 
its  original  languages,  constituted  the  curricu- 
lum, and  Princeton  College  started  on  its  benefi- 
cent career. 

After  the  usual  dispute  about  the  site,  the 
town  of  Princeton  succeeded  in  outbidding 
New  Brunswick,  and  in  1754  Nassau  Hall,  still 
standing,  was  commenced,  and  occupied  two 
years  later.  It  was  the  most  extensive  college 
building  at  that  time  in  the  colonies.  During 
the  campaigns  of  1776  and  1777  it  was  occupied 
alternately  by  the  British  and  American  armies, 
and  suffered  greatly.  The  students  were  scat- 
tered, the  books  and  physical  apparatus  were 
seriously  damaged,  and  some  of  the  funds  dis- 
appeared. 

The  college  had,  about  1750,  some  seventy 
students.  By  the  end  of  the  century  this  had 
increased  to  200.  Afterward  the  numbers 
receded,  and  it  was  not  till  about  1830  that  its 
memorable  growth  in  resources,  numbers,  and 
national  reputation,  which  still  continues,  was 
inaugurated. 


History  of  the  American  College        15 

Much  attention  during  colonial  days  was 
given  to  political  and  historical  subjects.  James 
Madison  there  drew  in  the  inspiration  which 
made  him  the  able  champion  of  the  new  Con- 
stitution, and  made  possible  the  distinguished 
political  career  which  ended  in  the  Presidency 
of  the  United  States.  Up  to  the  Civil  War 
Princeton  was  the  favorite  Northern  college 
for  Southern  people,  and  has  been  always  promi- 
nent in  political  and  economic  studies. 

UNIVERSITY   OF    PENNSYLVANIA 

An  institution  whose  foundation  was  largely 
due  to  Benjamin  Franklin  was  not  Hkely  to  be 
ecclesiastical  in  its  nature.  The  province  of 
Pennsylvania  from  its  earliest  days  was  strik- 
ingly free  from  denominational  preferences  and 
control.  The  Friends  in  1689  had  founded  a 
school  in  Philadelphia  for  the  general  education 
of  the  city.  In  time  branches  were  estabhshed 
for  boys  and  for  girls,  some  free  for  the  poorer 
children,  some  with  varying  grades  of  charges, 
and  all  feeding  into  the  Central  Latin  School. 
When  in  1749  a  new  institution  was  considered 
by  Franklin,  Logan,  and  their  associates,  it 
naturally  followed  the  model  already  in  ex- 
istence,   and    the   "Academy    and    Charitable 


1 6  The  American  College 

School"  was  founded.  Money  was  raised  by 
subscriptions  from  all  sects,  and  Franklin  in 
1750  wrote  a  paper  stating  the  objects  of  the 
school.  There  was  to  be  an  academy  for  the 
well-to-do  and  a  free  school  for  the  poor.  The 
youth  were  to  be  kept  at  home  rather  than  seek 
their  educational  facilities  in  England  or  the 
other  colonies.  Men  competent  to  act  as  pub- 
lic leaders  were  to  be  trained  here.  School 
teachers  were  also  to  be  educated,  and  trade 
drawn  to  the  city  by  the  tendency  of  population 
to  gather  around  a  good  school.  The  Latin 
language  was  to  be  taught,  but  schools  of 
mathematics  and  of  English  were  to  be  equally 
prominent. 

To  these  departments  a  college  was  added 
in  1755,  which  rapidly  grew  in  numbers  and  in- 
fluence. In  two  years  there  were  300  students, 
of  whom  100  were  in  the  college.  A  number  of 
lotteries  gave  large  returns.  Men  came  from 
the  West  Indies  and  red  men  from  the  interior. 
The  first  great  Provost,  WilHam  Smith,  an 
Episcopal  minister,  was  a  man  of  large  ideas. 
**No  such  comprehensive  scheme  of  education 
as  the  plan  he  laid  out  then  existed  in  the  Amer- 
ican colonies."  He  went  to  England  and 
brought  back  £6,000.     He  quarrelled  with  the 


History  of  the  American  College        17 

Quaker  legislature  and  heard  his  classes  in  the 
jail.  He  was  a  potent  factor  in  the  troubled 
times  before  and  during  the  Revolutionary  War, 
siding  with  the  Proprietors  against  the  people, 
and  during  the  war  with  the  British  interests. 
His  probity,  learning,  and  character  made  him 
generally  respected.  After  a  rival  institution 
had  been  set  up,  and  the  resources  of  the  uni- 
versity had  been  scattered  by  the  war.  Dr. 
Smith  came  into  possession  again  in  1791.  The 
succeeding  years  for  nearly  a  century  did  not 
show  much  growth  in  the  college,  and  until 
the  Civil  War  it  never  recovered  relatively  the 
high  position  it  had  before  the  Revolutionary 
War.  The  first  medical  school  and  the  first 
law  school  of  the  country  were  associated  with 
it,  and  these  have  always  had  a  high  reputation. 

COLUMBIA 

In  1754,  ^^  ^^^  basis  of  a  lottery.  King's 
College  in  New  York  was  founded.  For  several 
years  the  President  and  one  or  two  tutors  did  all 
the  teaching.  Like  the  similar  institution  in 
Philadelphia,  it  was  to  be  unsectarian,  though 
certain  religious  exercises  as  presented  by  the 
Church  of  England  were  adopted  for  daily 
worship,  and  each  student  on  Sunday  was  al- 


1 8  The  American  College 

lowed  to  attend  such  place  of  worship  as  his 
parents  directed.  The  curriculum  was  not 
different  from  that  of  the  other  colonial  colleges 
and  was  to  contain  "the  learned  languages  and 
the  liberal  arts  and  sciences."  Men  who  were 
afterward  distinguished — John  Jay,  Alexander 
Hamilton,  Gouvernor  Morris,  and  others — 
found  here  their  early  training. 

During  the  war  the  college  was  suspended 
and  the  building  used  as  a  hospital.  Imme- 
diately afterward  a  new  charter  was  sought, 
and  in  response  to  the  changed  conditions  the 
old  name  was  dropped  and  Columbia  was  sub- 
stituted. The  state  appropriated  money  for 
its  support,  and  new  standards  and  increased 
numbers  followed.  The  course  continued  to  be 
largely  classical,  with  higher  mathematics  and 
philosophy,  rhetoric,  and  logic.  In  recent  times 
there  has  been  great  expansion,  with  the  addi- 
tion of  professional  courses,  until  it  has  become 
the  largest  and  richest  of  the  American  univer- 
sities. 

BROWN 

An  institution  especially  for  Baptists  was 
chartered  in  Providence,  R.  I.,  in  1764.  The 
President   must   always   be   a   Baptist   and   so 


History  of  the  American  College        19 

must  a  majority  of  the  Board  of  Trustees.  The 
minority  was  composed  of  members  of  other 
bodies  in  definite  numbers,  and  so  it  remains. 
These  charter  limitations,  intended  to  secure 
it  against  denominationalism,  have  prevented 
it  from  coming  within  the  scope  of  the  provi- 
sions of  the  pension  plans  of  the  Carnegie 
Foundation.  In  accordance  with  the  spirit 
of  Roger  WilHams,  it  was  enacted:  "That  into 
this  liberal  and  catholic  institution  shall  never 
be  admitted  any  religious  tests.  But  on  the 
contrary  all  members  hereof  shall  forever  enjoy 
full,  free,  absolute,  and  uninterrupted  liberty  of 
conscience."  As  with  the  other  colonial  col- 
leges, the  movement  was  on  a  small  scale.  A 
very  few  learned  men  constituted  the  teaching 
force,  and  the  first  graduating  class,  in  1769, 
was  composed  of  seven  men.  The  initial  im- 
pulse for  the  university  came  from  Rev.  Mor- 
gan Edwards  of  Philadelphia,  who  afterward 
collected  money  for  it  in  England,  but  the  name 
was  a  shrewd  bid  for  other  support.  Originally 
it  was  "The  College  or  University  in  the  Eng- 
Hsh  Colony  of  Rhode  Island,"  and  liberty  was 
given  to  the  trustees  to  give  "such  more  par- 
ticular name  to  the  college  in  honor  of  the  great- 
est and  most  distinguished  benefactor."     This 


20  The  American  College 

suggestion  brought  fruit  in  1802,  when  Nicholas 
Brown  by  a  large  donation  made  himself  eligible 
for  the  honor. 

As  with  the  other  colleges,  the  Revolutionary 
War  temporarily  closed  its  operations.  The 
building  was  used  as  barracks  for  the  American 
soldiers. 

Brown,  while  developing  its  general  courses 
greatly  in  recent  years  so  as  to  pass  out  of  the 
list  of  "small  colleges,"  has  never  added  much 
in  the  way  of  professional  schools.  A  medical 
school  existed  for  a  few  years,  but  was  discon- 
tinued. 

RUTGERS 

The  charter  for  Queen's  College  was  granted 
in  1766  to  members  of  the  Dutch  Reformed 
Church.  After  a  contest  New  Brunswick,  N. 
J.,  secured  the  location.  It  was  originally  in- 
tended to  fit  ministers  of  the  denomination  for 
their  duties,  but  has  since  become  a  college  for 
general  higher  education,  the  neighboring  theo- 
logical seminary  being  afterward  established  as 
an  independent  institution.  As  the  result  of  a 
gift  of  ^5,000  after  the  Revolution  by  Colonel 
Henry  Rutgers  of  New  York  the  name  was 
changed  in  his  honor. 

The  college  is  now  associated  with  the  govern- 


History  of  the  American  College        21 

ment  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey  in  scientific 
work,  but  has  no  professional  schools  of  law  or 
medicine.  Its  charter  still  requires  that  its 
President  and  two  thirds  of  its  trustees  shall  be 
members  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church. 

DARTMOUTH      COLLEGE 

The  only  other  colonial  college  had  an  en- 
tirely different  origin  from  those  which  pre- 
ceded it.  Rev.  Eleazar  Wheelock  in  1754 
started  a  school  in  Connecticut  to  educate  and 
Christianize  Indian  boys.  The  number  seek- 
ing its  opportunities  increased  on  his  hands,  the 
assembhes  of  Massachusetts  and  New  Hamp- 
shire made  appropriations,  and  a  number  of 
sympathetic  friends  added  their  donations. 
He  finally  concluded  that  in  order  to  succeed 
he  must  be  nearer  the  frontier,  and  after  at- 
tempts to  secure  a  site  in  Virginia  and  numer- 
ous suggestions  from  New  England  towns,  he 
selected  Hanover,  New  Hampshire,  as  on  the 
Hne  of  travel  between  the  settled  parts  and  the 
Indian  country  and  in  the  midst  of  beautiful 
surroundings.  In  the  year  1769  he  secured  a 
charter  from  George  III,  and  in  recognition  of 
the  aid  Lord  Dartmouth  had  given  him  in  rais- 
ing funds,  the  institution  was  named  Dartmouth 


22  The  American  College 

College.  The  Revolutionary  War  put  an  end  to 
the  Indian  patronage,  and  the  college,  freed 
from  the  demand  for  any  special  or  denomi- 
national purposes,  developed  into  an  institution 
for  higher  general  learning. 

The  great  trial  which  came  in  1815  when 
Daniel  Webster,  a  graduate,  defended  the  old 
charter  against  an  attack  by  the  New  Hamp- 
shire Legislature,  a  contest  which  was  carried 
to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  and  which 
resulted  in  a  final  victory  for  the  college,  is 
important  in  its  general  significance  as  well  as  for 
Dartmouth  College.  The  New  Hampshire  Legis- 
lature had  sought  to  change  its  name  and  make 
It  a  state  institution.  The  decision  rested  on  a 
clause  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
forbidding  a  state  to  impair  the  obligation  of 
contracts.  The  question  of  the  rights  of  states 
was  involved  and  also  the  sacredness  of  a  con- 
tract however  secured.  The  decision  has  been 
greatly  criticised,  and  undoubtedly  has  produced 
some  undesirable  results,  but  for  Dartmouth 
College  and  its  able  advocate  it  brought  much 
cause  for  congratulation  and  secured  the  conti- 
nuity of  its  history. 

After  the  Revolutionary  War,  John  Wheelock, 
the  son  of  the  founder,  who  was  President  for 


History  of  the  American  College        23 

thirty-six  years,  went  to  England  with  letters 
from  Washington,  Frankhn,  and  John  Adams, 
and  obtained  large  donations  of  money  and 
philosophical  instruments,  WilHam  Prince  of 
Orange  being  a  donor.  Nevertheless,  it  had  a 
difficult  time  with  its  finances  for  many  years. 
At  one  time  it  was  announced  that  all  its 
property  if  sold  would  not  produce  enough  to 
pay  its  debts. 

Its  recent  history  has  placed  it  on  a  par  with 
other  New  England  colleges  in  its  resources  and 
curriculum.  Its  medical  school  dates  back  to 
1798,  and  a  school  of  science  gives  technical 
instruction  in  engineering  and  other  practical 
arts.  Its  growth  in  numbers  in  recent  years 
has  been  unusually  rapid. 

These  nine  colonial  colleges  gathered  to- 
gether their  resources  after  the  demoralizing 
results  of  the  Revolutionary  War  and  set  the 
standard  for  the  development  of  the  American 
college  of  after  years.  They  were  all  small 
colleges,  none  of  them  probably  exceeding  about 
100  collegiate  students  at  any  time  before  the 
war.  They  had  fixed  courses  of  study  which  did 
not  vary  much  from  each  other  and  which  all 
students  were  required  to  follow.  Each  gave 
its  own  degrees  without  much  regard  to  others. 


24  The  American  College 

except  that  they  would  recognize  the  bachelor's 
degree  given  by  others,  and  confer  on  the  basis 
of  it  the  higher  degree  of  master.  Their  fresh- 
men were  boys  from  twelve  years  of  age  upward 
and  needed  and  received  much  personal  supervi- 
sion and  control.  The  rules  of  conduct  were  rigid 
and  rigidly  enforced.  The  program  of  the  day 
was  laid  out  in  great  detail  from  rising  to  bedtime, 
and  strenuous  work  was  expected  and  probably 
in  the  main  obtained.  Their  degrees  stood  for 
the  liberal  education  of  the  times,  much  ancient 
language  and  history,  considerable  mathematics, 
a  severe  course  in  logic,  some  philosophy,  and  a 
touch  of  physical  science  with  side  excursions 
into  rhetoric  and  oratory.  This  line  of  studies 
faithfully  pursued  made  well-trained,  straight- 
thinking,  mentally  honest  men,  the  statesmen 
and  the  divines  who  laid  the  foundations  of  our 
Government  and  shaped  the  policy  upon  which 
our  political,  social,  and  religious  development 
has  been  carried  on.  The  attention  drawn  to 
America  as  the  result  of  the  Revolutionary  War 
and  the  estabHshment  of  a  stable  repubhcan 
government  was  largely  the  tribute  the  world 
paid  to  the  work  of  our  leaders  as  produced  by 
the  mental  and  moral  training  of  the  college 
graduates   of  the   day.    Adams    of   Harvard, 


History  of  the  American  College        25 

Jefferson  of  William  and  Mary,  Hamilton  of 
Kings,  and  Madison  of  Princeton  were  but  a 
few  of  the  great  men  who  fearlessly  met  the 
problems  of  the  day,  and  on  the  basis  of  an 
available  knowledge  of  past  history  and  the 
capacity  to  think  and  plan  wisely  and  bravely 
for  the  future,  gave  us  intelligent  and  lasting 
solutions.  But  for  these  struggHng  institutions, 
where  a  very  few  great  teachers  met  boys  in 
their  teens  and  trained  them  in  the  ways  of 
Christian  virtue  and  sound  learning,  the  history 
of  America  would  have  been  greatly  different. 
In  many  details  we  have  departed  from  the 
methods  of  these  institutions  in  their  early  days, 
but  in  general  our  present  colleges  are  what 
they  are  as  a  result  of  a  legitimate  inheritance 
from  the  past,  and  we  cannot  appreciate  them 
except  in  the  light  of  history. 

For  years  after  the  Revolution  there  was 
little  change  in  the  character  of  collegiate 
education.  The  old  colleges  continued  their 
methods  and  ideals  except  that  they  grew  larger 
and  richer.  The  new  ones,  of  which  there  were 
hundreds,  followed  sometimes  rather  slavishly 
in  the  beaten  paths.  The  most  of  them  knew 
no  other  form  of  higher  education  than  that 
they  had  inherited  from  the  past,  uniform  in 


26  The  American  College 

scope  for  all  students,  based  on  ancient  lan- 
guages, mathematics,  and  philosophy,  paternal  in 
government,  independent  of  each  other  in  degree- 
giving  and  internal  arrangements. 

In  the  quarter  century  just  prior  to  1800 
some  dozen  colleges  were  started.  Some  of 
these,  and  this  is  true  of  all  periods,  were  not 
colleges  but  academies  for  years  after  their 
foundation.  Thus  Washington  and  Lee,  which 
claims  an  origin  in  1749,  was  hardly  a  college 
during  colonial  days.  The  most  important  of 
these  were  Bowdoin  in  Maine,  Williams  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, Union  in  New  York,  Dickinson 
and  Washington  and  Jefferson  in  Pennsylvania, 
St.  Johns  in  Maryland,  Hampton  Sidney  in 
Virginia,  and  the  University  of  North  Carolina. 

In  the  sixty  years  following  1800,  187  colleges 
for  men  and  for  both  sexes  were  added  to  the 
list,  the  number  of  new  ones  increasing  in  each 
decade  after  1820.  In  the  '50's  alone  there  were 
eighty-two  new  foundations. 

All  this  time,  however,  there  was  a  small  but 
increasing  tendency  to  get  away  from  the  old 
curriculum,  of  which  divinity  was  an  important 
feature  and  the  ancient  classics  the  essential 
pabulum. 

In  **New  England's  First  Fruits"  we  have 


History  of  the  American  College        27 

the  first  published  college  curriculum  for  Har- 
vard given  for  each  day  of  the  week  for  three 
years.  Thus  Mondays  and  Tuesdays  it  was  to 
be  philosophy — embracing  logic,  physics,  ethics, 
and  geometry — in  the  morning,  theory;  in  the 
afternoon,  disputations;  Wednesdays,  Greek; 
Thursdays,  Hebrew,  Chaldee,  and  Syriac; 
Fridays,  rhetoric;  Saturdays,  divinity  and 
scholastic  disputations,  and  so  on.  Yale  and 
Princeton  followed  Harvard,  and  the  other 
colleges  were  largely  influenced  by  the  same 
tendencies;  Pennsylvania  and  Kings  probably 
the  least  so. 

About  the  year  1756,  when  he  entered  upon 
his  duties  as  first  Provost  of  the  College  of 
Philadelphia,  WiUiam  Smith  pubHshed  his 
"General  Idea  of  the  College  of  Mirania," 
which  was  the  first  attempt  to  draw  up  a  logical 
course  of  study  directly  adapted  to  the  work 
which  the  students  would  have  to  do.  Besides 
classics  and  mathematics,  this  included  survey- 
ing and  navigation,  chemistry  and  agriculture, 
government  and  commerce.  Of  course  there 
were  too  many  subjects  for  the  time  allotted, 
and  when  Dr.  Smith  came  to  apply  something 
Hke  this  paper  scheme  to  his  college  he  had 
to  adopt   a   sort   of  modern   elective   system. 


28  The  American  College 

Taking  the  more  important  as  necessary,  he 
allowed  the  others  to  occupy  what  he  called 
"private  hours,"  that  is  he  made  them  volun- 
tary, to  be  taken  when  the  student  had  the 
time.  He  claimed  for  this  that  such  young 
men  would  have  formed  the  habit  of  acqui- 
sition, which  they  would  continue  in  after  life. 

Other  men  were  working  at  the  same  general 
idea.  Thomas  Jefferson  became  "Visitor"  to 
the  College  of  William  and  Mary  in  1799,  and 
takes  evident  satisfaction  in  telHng  how  he 
aboHshed  the  professorships  of  divinity  and 
Oriental  languages  and  substituted  for  them  a 
"Professorship  of  Law  and  Police,  one  of 
Anatomy,  Medicine,  and  Chemistry,  and  one  of 
Modern  Languages."  But  the  old  order  was 
too  strong  for  even  Jefferson,  and  leaving  WiUiam 
and  Mary  to  its  ancient  curriculum  he  founded 
the  University  of  Virginia  on  modern  lines. 

About  1820  there  were  signs  of  further 
adaptation  to  practical  demands  among  the 
colleges,  such  subjects  as  chemistry  and  po- 
litical economy  being  introduced  into  the  courses. 
A  chair  of  history  was  estabHshed  in  WilHam  and 
Mary  about  this  time,  an  example  which  Yale 
did  not  follow  till  after  the  Civil  War. 

But  the  strongest  single  influence  in  favor  of 


History  of  the  American  College        29 

the  modernization  of  the  course  of  study  was 
Thomas  Jefferson.  In  his  old  age,  in  181 8,  he 
persuaded  the  Legislature  of  Virginia  to  make 
an  annual  appropriation  of  ^15,000  to  a  new 
university.  He  was  chosen  as  President  of  the 
Governing  Board  and  had  large  powers  in 
shaping  its  policy.  Not  only  did  he  plan  its 
architecture  and  supervise  its  physical  con- 
struction, but  he  devoted  equal  time  and  study 
to  its  organization  and  scheme  of  study.  Prob- 
ably he  derived  his  ideas  largely  from  Edin- 
burgh. At  any  rate,  the  plan  was  the  most 
fundamental  break  with  the  past  as  yet  known 
in  America.  He  planned  for  ten  main  groups  of 
studies  to  be  under  the  care  of  ten  professors. 
These  headings  were  ancient  languages,  modern 
languages,  pure  mathematics,  applied  mathe- 
matics, natural  philosophy,  botany,  anatomy, 
government,  law,  and  idealogy  (ethics,  rhetoric, 
etc.). 

But  as  it  was  impossible  for  one  student  to 
take  all  these  subjects,  it  was  decreed  that  they 
should  be  given  at  different  hours,  and  "Every 
student  shall  be  free  to  attend  the  schools  of  his 
choice,  and  no  other  than  he  chooses."  Here 
was  the  first  elective  system  of  America. 

The  University  of  Virginia  opened  its  doors 


\ 


30  The  American  College 

in  1825.  About  the  same  time  George  Ticknor, 
who  was  in  frequent  correspondence  with  Jeffer- 
son and  who  had  brought  back  from  Gottingen 
many  German  ideas,  began  to  advocate  changes 
in  the  same  direction  at  Harvard.  He  was  more 
cautious  than  the  Virginian.  "The  majority 
of  the  young  men  who  come  to  Cambridge  should 
not  be  left  entirely  to  themselves  to  choose 
what  they  will  study,  because  they  are  not  com- 
petent to  judge  what  will  be  most  important 
for  them.'' 

About  the  same  time  the  faculty  of  Amherst 
College  in  Massachusetts  sent  to  the  governing 
board  a  cogent  letter  demanding  the  enlarge- 
ment of  the  curriculum  by  the  inclusion  of  the 
new  studies.  "Why  such  reluctance  to  admit 
modern  improvement  and  modern  literature.? 
Why  so  little  attention  to  the  natural,  civil, 
and  political  history  of  our  country  and  to  the 
genius  of  our  government .?  .  .  .  Why  should 
the  student  be  compelled  to  spend  nearly  four 
years  out  of  six  in  the  study  of  the  dead  lan- 
guages, for  which  he  has  no  taste,  from  which  he 
expects  to  derive  no  material  advantage,  and  for 
which  he  will  in  fact  have  very  little  use  after 
his  senior  examination?" 

But  this  little  flurry  in  the  '20's  did  not  seem 


History  of  the  American  College        31 

to  have  much  eflFect  upon  the  New  England 
colleges.  The  old  curriculum  and  the  old  meth- 
ods of  teaching  by  recitation  had  too  much 
hold,  and  the  board  never  allowed  the  Amherst 
plan  to  go  into  operation.  It  is  of  interest  to 
note  that  this  college  of  western  Massachu- 
setts, which  pleaded  so  forcibly  for  breaking 
away  from  the  dominance  of  Latin  and  Greek,  is 
now  (1914)  leading  a  movement  to  restore  them 
to  a  more  important  place  in  the  courses  of 
study,  and  to  make  at  least  one  of  them  a  neces- 
sary condition  of  entrance  and  graduation. 

While  one  must  recognize  the  dreary  waste 
of  time  in  this  mediaeval  period  for  the  young 
man  to  whom  classical  studies  were  uncongenial, 
it  is  not  at  all  clear  that,  judging  by  the  charac- 
ter of  the  graduates,  the  sons  of  Virginia  were 
any  more  efficient  in  performing  the  duties  of  life, 
under  the  free  system  of  Charlottesville,  than 
were  the  New  Englanders  trained  in  the  rigid 
school  in  Cambridge.  Perhaps  the  future  will 
show  us  that  two  types  of  colleges  are  necessary 
and  that  neither  one  can  satisfy  all  the  demands 
of  an  education  in  a  country  where  all  citizens 
may  claim  the  privileges  of  the  higher  learning. 

Thus  at  the  opening  of  the  Civil  War  there 
were  something  over   200   colleges   dispensing 


32  The  American  College 

higher  educadon  to  American  youth.  This 
education  in  the  main  was  of  a  sort  which,  except 
for  the  training  and  culture  received,  had  com- 
paratively little  to  do  directly  with  the  practical 
problems  of  after  Hfe.  The  classics,  though 
weakening  with  the  years,  still  maintained  their 
hold  as  the  necessary  basis  of  a  sound  intel- 
lectual training. 

Comparatively  little  of  election  was  per- 
mitted. The  New  England  model  was  in  most 
cases  rather  closely  followed.  Harvard  and 
Yale  set  the  standard  for  the  country,  and  their 
position  was  an  evolution,  and  a  shght  one  at 
that,  of  the  colonial  college.  They  contained 
about  5CXD  undergraduate  students  each,  and 
retained  many  of  the  qualities  of  the  small 
college,  though  they  were  in  the  process  of 
emergence  from  this  type. 

Nevertheless,  the  college  men  still  held  their 
preeminence  in  public  Hfe.  The  high  officers 
of  the  Federal  government,  the  leading  men  in 
the  professions,  the  men  of  influence  in  most 
communities  were  in  large  proportion  college 
men.  Even  admitting  that  the  criticisms  levelled 
at  the  college  course  that  it  was  unadapted 
to  and  unconnected  with  the  problems  of  Ameri- 
can civilization  were  partly  correct,  its  advo- 


History  of  the  American  College        33 

cates  could  still  point  to  the  results  with  reason- 
able satisfaction. 

The  decade  of  the  Civil  War  was  the  be- 
ginning of  the  new  era.     The  progressive  forces 
had  become  so  strong  that  the  new  men  inducted 
into  the  presidencies  were  their  representatives. 
Charles  W.  EHot  was  made  President  of  Har- ' 
vard  in  1869,  and  changes  came  thick  and  fast. 
In  time  the  whole  required  system  of  studies, 
venerable  by  230  years  of  use,  was  to  pass  away 
and  unrestricted  electives  take  its  place.     This 
meant  a  legitimate  bidding  for  students  and 
stimulated    every   teacher   to    his    best   work. 
Uninterested  and  uninteresting  teachers  fell  out 
of  the  race  and  a  new  spirit  pervaded  the  college.  | 
Many   other   colleges   accustomed   to   look   to  \ 
this  oldest  institution  followed  at  greater  or  less    \ 
distance,  and  the  elective  system  became  the  j 
byword  for  modern  progress. 

Cornell  University  was  opened  in  1869. 
Here,  in  the  words  of  its  founder,  "any  person 
may  find  instruction  in  any  subject."  Liberty 
in  the  choice  of  studies  had  become  fundamental. 
The  old  subjects  were  taught,  but  a  host  of  new  , 
ones  have  been  introduced,  upon  which  the  old 
English  university  school  of  educators  would 
have  looked  with  scorn. 


34  The  American  College 

In  this  decade  also  came  into  prominence  the 
state  universities.  Their  history  does  not  come 
within  our  scope  except  insofar  as  they  have 
affected  the  life  of  the  college. 

The  colonial  colleges  nearly  all  received  state 
aid  by  appropriations  of  money  or  land.  This, 
however,  did  not  bring  with  it  state  control,  and 
in  most  cases  there  arose  so  much  jealousy  be- 
tween the  Government  and  the  denominational 
boards  that  the  appropriations  ceased.  The 
sectarian  or  factional  management  could  hardly 
give  what  was  wanted  for  public  purposes,  and 
yet  they  so  possessed  the  field  that  a  purely 
state  institution  was  unnecessary  and  often 
impossible.  In  the  cases  of  Columbia  and  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  less  denomina- 
tional than  the  others,  state  control  was  for  a 
time  assumed,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  Dart- 
mouth was  a  state  school  until  released  by  the 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  In  the  states 
where  there  were  no  colleges,  and  in  the  new 
states  to  the  west,  as  they  were  created,  be- 
ginning with  North  Carolina  in  1795,  state 
universities  were  located,  either  by  assuming 
the  management  of  some  existing  college,  or  by 
establishing  a  new  one. 

In  no  case,  however,  prior  to  the  Civil  War, 


History  of  the  American  College        35 

were  these  other  than  second-class  colleges. 
The  state  aid  was  not  liberal  enough  to  secure 
efficiency,  and  private  donations  were  not  forth- 
coming. In  the  states  of  the  West  the  oppor- 
tunity was  the  greatest,  and  yet  up  to  1862 
there  was  nothing  whose  rivalry  would  give  the 
old  established  colleges  any  concern.  The  new 
institutions  were  inferior  in  numbers,  in  prestige, 
and  in  material  and  scholarly  equipment. 

This  was  all  changed  by  the  passage  of  the 
Morrill  Act  by  the  United  States  Congress  in 
1862.  This  decreed  a  grant  of  30,000  acres  for 
each  Senator  and  Representative  in  land — if 
the  state  possessed  so  much  unappropriated — 
otherwise  in  scrip.  The  states  with  varying 
efficiency  converted  the  land  or  scrip  into  cash 
and  appropriated  the  proceeds  to  higher  educa- 
tion. The  purpose  as  stated  in  the  Act  was 
mainly  to  teach  agriculture  and  the  mechanic 
arts,  and  military  training  was  required.  The 
amount  varied  with  the  wisdom  of  the  state  in 
deahngwith  the  appropriation  as  well  as  with  the 
number  of  its  legislators.  The  smallest  amount 
realized  was  probably  ^5,000,  the  largest  perhaps 
$750,000.  In  some  cases  it  went  to  existing 
institutions,  or  those  about  forming,  as  in  New 
York,   where   Cornell   received    it.     In   others 


36  The  American  College 

new  institutions  were  created,  and  these  were 
afterward  aided  by  Hberal  appropriations  from 
the  state  legislatures. 

Thus  there  has  arisen  the  most  efficient  and 
varied  state  provision  for  higher  education  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  In  the  Western  States 
where  growth  of  population  was  rapid,  en- 
thusiasm intense,  and  values  doubling  with 
each  decade,  universities  of  the  highest  efficiency 
and  most  closely  connected  with  popular  needs 
have  developed  with  unheard-of  rapidity.  In 
one  decade  there  would  be  treeless  plains,  in  the 
next  a  struggling  institution,  in  one  or  two  more 
a  seat  of  learning  rivalling  in  numbers  the 
ancient  foundations  of  the  east,  with  ample 
resources  at  its  command,  where  every  boy  and 
girl  could  have  every  legitimate  intellectual  im- 
pulse, except  in  theology,  satisfied,  and  which, 
by  direct  appropriation  or  the  permanent  res- 
ervation of  a  special  proportion  of  the  taxes 
willingly  given,  could  have  every  opportunity 
for  future  development. 

For  several  years  after  the  founding,  and  ex- 
tending in  some  cases  to  the  present  time,  there 
was  one  marked  distinction  between  the  older 
and  the  newer  universities.  The  former  were 
for  the  education  of  a  cultured  class.     They 


History  of  the  American  College        37 

made  entrance  somewhat  difficult  by  exami- 
nation. Their  courses  were  largely  intellectual, 
whether  in  language  or  science.  Their  special 
schools  prepared  for  the  "learned  professions." 
In  their  undergraduate  department  there  was 
comparatively  little  direct  relation  with  the  spe- 
cial future  needs  of  the  individual  student.  The 
classical  languages,  if  not  exclusively  required, 
were  felt  to  convey  some  dignity  and  quahty 
of  scholarship  denied  to  others.  The  importance 
of  mental  discipline  and  scholarly  qualities  was 
emphasized,  while  knowledge  which  had  simply 
a  bread-and-butter  value  was  depreciated. 

In  the  newer  universities  all  this  was  reversed. 
It  was  not  the  cultured,  well-to-do  families  that 
were  considered,  but  the  great  mass  of  the  citi- 
zens. Charges  were  low.  The  price  of  tuition 
was  small  or  nothing.  Efforts  were  made  to 
keep  down  the  cost  of  board  by  student  clubs  and 
other  wholesale  arrangements.  Entrance  was  ob- 
tained by  presenting  the  certificate  of  a  high 
school  with  which  they  were  closely  articulated. 
Their  courses  were  practical  and  fed  directly  the 
after  life  of  the  student,  whether  professional, 
business,  or  farming.  While  the  old  courses  were 
offered  they  were  taken  but  slightly  by  the  men, 
more  generally  by  the  women,  but  no  special  im- 


38  The  American  College 

portance  attached  to  them.  They  were  strictly 
coordinate  with  such  as  were  exclusively  "prac- 
tical." Mental  discipline,  an  intangible  thing, 
was  but  slightly  considered,  or  assumed  to  attach 
to  all  study;  and  courses  exclusively  **  utilitarian" 
were  freely  recognized.  The  duty  to  shape  legis- 
lation intelHgently  and  hence  to  study  the  state 
problems  which  affected  the  common  citizen 
was  kept  in  the  foreground.  In  time  many  of 
the  lawmakers  were  taken  from  the  graduate 
ranks  and  naturally  turned  to  their  state  uni- 
versities for  light  and  leading  which  were  freely 
given.  They  willingly  voted  more  and  ever 
more  money  to  the  institution.  It  thus  became 
a  part  of  the  state  machinery,  ever  watchful  of 
human  interests,  whether  individual,  economic, 
or  moral. 

All  this  reacted  upon  the  colleges.  They 
could  not  duplicate  the  expensive  equipment  of 
the  state  universities,  and  the  most  of  them  did 
not  make  any  pretence  to  it.  But  the  nation 
was  filled  with  new  ideas  as  to  the  meaning  and 
purpose  of  higher  education.  It  was  no  longer 
to  be  the  heritage  of  the  "well-born"  alone.  It 
was  something  to  which  the  poorest  might 
properly  aspire,  and  when  local  or  denomi- 
national reasons  dictated  the  choice  of  some 


History  of  the  American  College        39 

other  college  than  the  state  university,  to  the 
student  came  ideas  of  which  the  father  never 
thought.  He  wanted  to  learn  things  which 
would  be  of  most  worth.  He  was  often  an  in- 
competent judge  of  the  matter,  but  the  college 
needed  his  patronage  and  went  part  way  to  meet 
his  ideas.  So  the  basis  of  college  education, 
especially  in  the  west,  underwent  a  change.  The 
courses  became  more  elective  and  more  in  touch 
with  common  needs,  without  abandoning  the 
culture  studies.  Indeed  in  some  parts  the  only 
hope  of  these  studies  was  the  small  college. 

Another  factor  which  wrought  to  change  the 
methods  and  ideals  of  the  American  college 
through  the  last  third  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury was  the  influence  of  the  German  univer- 
sity. Between  181 2  and  1820  Edward  Everett 
and  George  Ticknor  were  students  at  Gottingen. 
They  appear  to  have  recognized  the  superiority 
of  the  German  student  to  the  American  in  age 
and  maturity,  but  to  have  come  back  to  Har- 
vard College  with  no  very  well-defined  tendency 
toward  foreign  methods.  Everett  in  later  years 
as  President  was  a  reactionist,  but  Ticknor, 
probably  as  the  result  of  correspondence  with 
Thomas  Jefferson,  adopted  wide  election  in  his 
Harvard  courses  in  French  and  Spanish,  to  the 


40  The  American  College 

manifest  advantage,  as  he  thought,  of  the  inter- 
est and  proficiency  of  the  students. 

Following  these  pioneers  a  steady  stream  of 
American  graduates  set  toward  the  German 
universities.  This  was  small  at  first,  but  later 
in  the  century  assumed  very  large  proportions. 
The  man  who  aspired  to  a  good  teaching  po- 
sition in  the  best  colleges  and  the  board  which 
has  such  appointments  to  make  alike  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Philosophy  from  Germany  was  almost  essential. 
From  1 815  to  1850  some  225  Americans  were 
students  at  the  German  universities,  and  137  of 
these  went  into  college  teaching  when  they  came 
back  to  America. 

With  the  return  of  these  doctors  to  their 
work  in  the  colleges  came  to  the  front  the  ef- 
fect of  the  German  influence.  The  extent  and 
popularity  of  the  elective  system  received  a 
new  impetus.  Lectures  were  substituted  for 
recitations.  Some  of  these  were  dry  enough, 
but,  being  the  German  method,  were  received  as 
the  latest  thing  in  education.  Research  became 
a  word  of  great  significance.  There  was  to  be  a 
certain  productivity  of  scholarship,  which  more 
than  teaching  was  the  test  of  fitness  to  hold  a 
collegiate  chair.     Monographs  and  books  were 


History  of  the  American  College        41 

the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  this  inward 
and  scholarly  accompHshment. 

The  small  colleges  followed  at  a  distance. 
If  one  of  them  could  fortunately  secure  a  Ger- 
man Ph.  D.  it  was  a  step  forward.  He  tried  to 
lecture  often  with  unfortunate  consequences. 
At  the  end  of  the  year  the  examination  revealed 
very  superficial  and  inaccurate  results.  If  he 
could  not  do  much  in  the  way  of  research  him- 
self, he  held  it  up  to  his  students,  however 
immature,  as  the  road  to  the  best  in  education, 
in  some  cases  to  the  manifest  growth  in  en- 
thusiasm of  the  boy. 

Of  late  years  this  admiration  for  Teutonic 
methods  has  waned.  But  it  has  left  its  benefi- 
cent influence,  after  its  place  and  power  in 
America  have  become  more  clearly  manifest. 
It  led  the  way  to  the  establishment  of  Graduate 
Schools  in  our  better  endowed  universities,  in 
which  movement  Johns  Hopkins  in  1876  led  the 
way.  Here  was  the  real  counterpart  of  the 
German  university,  and  here  its  procedure  was 
largely  in  place;  though  here  also  individual 
and  unceremonious  instruction  counted  for  more 
than  the  formal  lecture.  The  German  inspi- 
ration broke  the  bonds  in  the  colleges  of  the 
dry  recitation  and  spirit  of  the  taskmaster  and 


42  The  American  College 

substituted  more  of  a  living  and  personal  con- 
tact with  the  great  teachers  and  great  books. 

The  American  university  is  neither  English 
nor  German.  At  first  the  former  was  its  model, 
but  in  no  case  has  it  become  an  aggregation  of 
coordinate  colleges.  It  has  felt  the  German 
touch  but  has  responded  to  the  different  de- 
mands of  American  life. 

Such  is  an  outhne  of  the  history  of  the  devel- 
opment of  the  American  college  to  its  present 
estate.  Whether  organically  associated  with  a 
university,  or  detached  from  it,  the  college,  by 
some  adaptation  to  changing  needs,  has  been 
able  to  retain  its  hold  upon  the  pubHc.  It  gives 
an  education  of  which  the  first  two  years  in 
subject  matter  may  correspond  with  the  last 
two  of  the  French  Lycee,  the  German  Gym- 
nasium or  Realschiile,  or  the  English  PubHc 
School,  and  in  the  last  two  the  students  have 
the  same  general  maturity  as  those  of  the 
European  university.  It  is  the  product  in 
many  cases  of  a  denominational  demand  for 
strengthening  a  special  theology  or  educating 
pastors  or  workers  for  certain  ecclesiastical  pur- 
poses. Sometimes  it  is  simply  the  effort  of 
a  town  to  **boom"  itself  by  advertising  the 
opportunities  for  education.     Sometimes  it  grat- 


History  of  the  American  College        43 

ifies  the  vanity  of  a  donor  by  accepting  his 
name  in  its  charter  or  publications.  There  are 
many  weaknesses  and  much  to  criticise  in  some 
of  its  members,  but  on  the  whole  it  has  had  a 
very  large  influence  for  good  upon  American 
development. 


CHAPTER  II 

COLLEGE  ADMINISTRATION 

The  words  "University"  and  "College"  have 
no  very  well-defined  meaning  in  the  United 
States.  Any  definition  which  one  could  give 
would  omit  a  number  of  institutions  which  bear 
the  titles.  Those  universities  which  may  be 
considered  as  most  njearly  representing  the  type 
were  as  we  have  seen  originally  based  on  the 
English  as  models,  modified  sHghtly  by  French 
thought  just  after  the  Revolution,  then  trans- 
formed by  German  influences  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  continuously 
varied  by  American  demands.  They  contain 
a  college  for  undergraduate  work,  a  graduate 
department  for  general  scholarship,  and  one  or 
more  professional  schools,  which  make  diflFer- 
ent  demands  for  entrance,  varying  from  a  high 
school  diploma  to  a  college  degree.  The  Har- 
vard professional  schools  mostly  require  the 
bachelor's  degree  from  a  recognized  college, 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania  Medical  School 


College  Administration  45 

requires  two  college  years  prior  to  entering,  and 
the  state  law  demands  one.  Many  others  will 
accept  a  course  in  a  four  years'  high  school  as 
the  only  necessary  prerequisite.  In  general,  the 
standards  of  entrance  to  law  and  medical 
schools  are  being  pressed  upward  either  by  the 
force  of  public  or  professional  sentiment  or  the 
requirements  of  state  laws. 

The  American  university  is  therefore  mainly 
a  group  of  schools  for  scholarly  or  special  work 
with  a  college  as  its  basis.  Not  all  institutions, 
however,  which  bear  the  title  can  be  included  in 
this  definition.  There  seems  to  be  no  effective 
remedy  for  the  adoption  of  the  name  by  a  school 
even  when  it  does  not  conform  to  any  reputable 
scholastic  standards.  It  is  one  of  our  American 
faults  to  assume  names  simply  for  effect.  Thus 
"to  graduate"  was  originally  to  furnish  with  a 
degree;  now  it  means  to  complete  a  course  in  a 
school  of  any  grade.  A  ** Professor"  was  a 
teacher  in  college  or  university;  now  any  peda- 
gogue who  desires  it,  and  some  who  do  not,  are 
supplied  with  the  title.  So  common  has  it  be- 
come that  in  some  reputable  universities  those 
who  have  right  to  it  prefer  to  have  it  omitted. 
In  the  same  way  it  has  seemed  good  to  certain 
founders  of  colleges  or  even  academies  to  attempt 


46  The  American  College 

to  honor  them  with  the  appellation  which  has 
been  for  centuries  borne  by  the  greatest  educa- 
tional institutions  of  Europe  and  America. 

There  are  **  universities"  with  twenty  students 
of  low  college  grade  and  a  considerable  pre- 
paratory department.  Others  are  simply  fraud- 
ulent institutions  formed  for  the  purpose  of 
seUing  degrees,  and  with  their  announcements 
filled  with  false  or  exaggerated  statements  of 
their  physical  and  intellectual  equipment.  Thus 
an  institution  which  in  response  to  state  re- 
quirements certified  that  its  cash  assets  were 

$450  advertises  itself  as  " University." 

Another,  which  issues  a  statement  which  would 
not  seem  overdrawn  if  made  by  Berlin  or 
Oxford,  has  no  resources,  except  on  paper. 
All  of  these  have  charters  to  grant  any  degrees, 
and  many  of  them  do  grant  them,  even  those 
reserved  by  the  best  universities  for  graduate 
work  of  several  years  with  stringent  examina- 
tions and  a  thesis  showing  some  evidence  of 
capacity  for  research. 

The  word  "College"  has  been  similarly 
abused  and  means  but  little  in  itself.  The 
degradation  does  not  seem  so  great  because  the 
title  has  never  been  so  distinguished  in  history. 
But  there  are  "  Colleges  "  which  are  simply  low- 


College  Administration  47 

grade  schools,  and  they  vary  in  significance  all 
the  way  along  the  line  up  to  such  honorable 
institutions  as  Dartmouth  and  Williams. 

It  would  make  but  little  difference  as  to  the 
assumption  of  names,  if  the  name  in  many  cases 
did  not  carry  the  right  to  grant  degrees.  Such 
charters  have  been  liberally  scattered  by  our 
legislatures  and  courts  in  the  past.  As  a  result 
there  is  quite  as  much  difference  in  the  value  of 
a  degree  from  different  sources  as  in  the  merits 
of  the  universities  themselves.  A  degree  really 
signifies  little  if  the  knowledge  of  the  origin 
of  the  degree  is  withheld.  Some  degrees  are 
P  obtained  by  purchase,  so  that  it  is  a  common 
witticism  that  certain  colleges  are  getting  rich 
*'by  degrees";  some  as  the  result  of  no  residence 
and  very  slight  examinations. 

The  main  influences  brought  into  use  to  check 
this  evil  are  publicity  and  legislative  action. 
There  is  among  reputable  universities  an  under- 
standing that  certain  degrees,  notably  Doctor 
of  Philosophy  (Ph.  D.)  and  Doctor  of  Science 
(Sc.  D.)  shall  be  sparingly  given  as  the  reward 
of  high  attainments  severely  tested  and  only  on 
examination.  There  is  nothing,  however,  to 
hinder  any  cheap  college  giving  them  as  hono- 
rary degrees  to  unworthy  recipients.     Holding 


48  The  American  College 

the  practice  up  to  reprobation  and  publishing 
the  lists  are,  however,  discouraging  the  practice, 
and  men  who  have  received  them  in  this  easy 
way  are  usually  slow  to  state  the  circumstances. 
A  few  states,  as  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and 
Pennsylvania,  have  enacted  laws  governing  the 
use  of  the  title  "College"  or  "University,"  and 
checking  the  right  to  grant  degrees  by  inferior 
institutions.  In  New  York  an  institution  to  be 
ranked  as  a  college  must  have  at  least  six  pro- 
fessors engaged  in  teaching  college  studies,  must 
have  a  course  of  four  years  in  Hberal  arts  and 
sciences,  based  on  a  high  school  course  of  four 
years,  and  also  have  a  productive  endowment 
of  not  less  than  $200,000.  The  Pennsylvania 
requirements  are  even  more  rigid.  They  can 
apply  only  to  institutions  chartered  after  the 
passage  of  the  act. 

"No  institution  shall  be  chartered,  with  the 
power  to  confer  degrees,  unless  it  has  assets 
amounting  to  five  hundred  thousand  dollars 
invested  in  buildings,  apparatus,  and  endow- 
ments, for  the  exclusive  purpose  of  promoting 
instruction,  and  unless  the  faculty  consists  of  at 
least  six  regular  professors,  who  devote  all  their 
time  to  the  instruction  of  its  college  or  univer- 
sity classes;  nor  shall  any  baccalaureate  degree 


College  Administration  49 

in  arts,  science,  philosophy,  or  literature  be  con- 
ferred upon  any  student  who  has  not  completed 
a  college  or  university  course  covering  four 
years.  The  standard  of  admission  to  these 
four-year  courses  or  to  advanced  classes  in  these 
courses  shall  be  subject  to  the  approval  of  the 
said  council." 

In  Michigan  an  endowment  of  ^100,000  is 
required.  In  New  Jersey  the  State  Board  of 
Education  is  authorized  to  fix  the  terms  on 
which  institutions  less  than  twenty-five  years  old 
may  grant  degrees.  Something  like  this  also 
exists  in  Maryland  and  in  Massachusetts.  Had 
such  laws  been  on  the  statute  books  of  all  the 
states  for  the  past  century,  our  educational  his- 
tory would  have  been  in  this  respect  less  discred- 
itable. 

By  court  decisions  these  regulations  cannot 
apply  to  institutions  already  in  existence,  as  it 
is  held  that  a  charter  is  a  contract  to  be  annulled 
only  by  the  consent  of  both  parties. 

In  a  number  of  other  states,  as  Iowa  and 
Kansas,  either  by  legislative  action  or  agree- 
ment among  the  colleges  themselves,  the  same 
result  has  been  partially  accomplished  by 
classifying  the  colleges.  Class  one  would  in 
general  satisfy  the  requirements  of  New  York 


50  The  American  College 

mentioned  above.  As  the  lists  are  public  prop- 
erty, it  becomes  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  a 
college  in  prestige  and  patronage  to  be  placed 
in  the  first  class. 

The  North  Central  Association  of  Colleges 
and  Secondary  Schools,  whose  membership  em- 
braces institutions  in  sixteen  states,  has  defined 
the  conditions  which  will  accredit  universities 
and  colleges.  They  must  require  fourteen  units 
even  of  conditioned  students.  Four  years  will 
be  required,  of  which  the  first  two  will  continue 
the  work  of  a  high  school.  College  teachers 
shall  have  as  a  minimum  a  college  degree.  The 
endowment  shall  not  be  less  than  $200,000,  or,  if 
state  aided,  its  income  shall  not  be  less  than 
$100,000.  Eight  departments  shall  be  sus- 
tained, with  at  least  one  professor  each.  The 
building  conditions  shall  be  hygienic,  the  equip- 
ment ample,  and  the  classes  Hmited  to  thirty 
students.  The  teacher  shall  not  have  over 
eighteen  hours  per  week  (preferably  not  over 
fifteen)  and  the  graduates  shall  be  competent 
to  enter  graduate  schools  of  good  standing. 

But  omitting  the  sham  and  feeble  schools,  of 
whatever  name,  there  is  a  distinction  gradually 
becoming  more  definite  between  a  college  and  a 
university.     The    purpose    of   a    college   is   to 


College  Administration  51 

train  men  in  a  broad  way  to  assume  the  duties  \ 
of  life.  It  should  train  them  for  service,  and  in 
order  to  accomplish  this  it  must  influence  their 
character  as  well  as  their  intellect.  Its  standard 
product  is  the  man  with  a  moral  purpose  who 
can  also  think  right.  If  he  has  one  quality 
without  the  other  he  will  be  either  an  inefFec-  , 
tive  disturber  of  existing  conditions  or  an  ef- 
fective, disorganizing  force  for  evil.  It  prepares 
for  all  vocations  and  for  every  sphere.  It  may 
have  its  students  direct  their  studies  into  special 
lines,  but  it  will  see  that  their  knowledge  covers 
things  that  are  worth  knowing  in  many  fields. 
It  will  give  them  the  physical  training  upon 
which  they  may  base  their  life  work,  and  sur- 
round them  with  the  religious  influences  which 
will  give  spirit  and  purpose  to  their  eflPorts.  Its 
ideal  is  the  well-rounded,  fully  developed  man 
or  woman.  The  university  has  a  different 
purpose.  Its  objects  are  (i)  to  take  the  college 
products  at  some  stage  of  their  development 
and  give  them  professional  training  in  prepa- 
ration for  a  definite  vocation,  and  (2)  to  engage 
in  scholarly  research,  and  to  prepare  men  for  it 
in  the  graduate  school. 

All  the  universities  maintain  colleges  as  de- 
partments,   but   many   colleges    are   detached 


52  The  American  College 

from  universities.  Johns  Hopkins  started  with 
the  idea  of  being  simply  a  graduate  school  with- 
out a  college  and  without  professional  schools. 
It  added,  however,  first,  a  medical  school,  then  a 
college.  Its  original  impulse  started  the  move- 
ment for  high-grade  instruction  in  the  United 
States.  Harvard,  Columbia,  and  other  strong 
universities,  and  some  not  so  strong,  added 
graduate  departments.  Some  colleges  with  no 
very  distinct  idea  of  essential  differences  between 
the  two  classes  of  institutions  tried  to  do  the 
same,  usually  to  their  own  loss  and  that  of  their 
students. 

The  approximate  age  of  admission  to  college 
is  18.5  years,  and  of  graduation  22.5  years.  If 
on  top  of  this  is  placed  three  or  four  years  of 
professional  study,  and  also  the  necessary  hospi- 
tal or  office  work,  a  young  person  is  nearly 
thirty  before  he  can  engage  in  remunerative 
practice.  He  probably  makes  up  the  loss  by  bet- 
ter preparation  and  larger  returns  in  after  years, 
but  many  cannot  afford  the  time  or  money  nec- 
essary for  this  extended  course  of  study. 

The  remedy  for  this  may  lie  partly  in  the 
secondary  schools.  It  is  a  well-established  fact 
that  the  boys  of  the  best  schools  of  Europe  have 
at  sixteen  the  educational  standing  of  the  Ameri- 


College  Administration  53 

can  boys  at  eighteen.  This  is  due  to  longer 
terms,  longer  hours  per  day,  more  exacting  de- 
mands, less  outside  distraction,  and  probably 
also  to  teaching  better  adapted  to  encourage  the 
brighter  and  better  students.  If  this  could 
be  brought  about  here,  two  years  of  time  could 
be  saved. 

This  also  explains  the  fact  that  many  pro- 
fessional schools  of  high  grade  require  less  than 
the  four  college  years  for  matriculation.  Some 
of  them  claim,  especially  in  medicine,  that 
greater  deftness  of  hand  and  brain  result  from 
beginning  their  special  study  at  a  younger  age 
than  twenty-three.  Engineering  study  is  not 
usually  based  on  previous  college  work,  but  is 
carried  on  as  a  coordinate  hne,  with  only  a 
high  school  course  as  a  prerequisite.  Divinity 
students  are  very  generally  college  graduates,  as 
are  also  many  law  students. 

It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  the  exact  re- 
lations of  the  college  to  the  university  are  not 
well  determined  in  America.  The  independence 
of  institutions,  the  slow  growth  of  educational 
sentiment,  the  indifference  to  the  best  standards 
in  the  case  of  schools  which  are  strugghng  with 
poverty  or  non-patronage,  prevent  any  very 
definite  limitation  of  the  work  done  respectively 


54  The  American  College 

by  college  and  university.  The  forces  of  de- 
velopment are,  however,  having  their  influence, 
and  an  approach  to  system  is  beginning  to 
exist  in  our  best  institutions. 

The  administrative  factors  concerned  in  the 
management  of  a  college  are  (i)  the  Governing 
Board,  (2)  the  President,  (3)  the  faculty,  (4) 
the  alumni  body,  and  (5)  the  undergraduates. 

The  Governing  Board.  This  board  is  usually 
called  the  Board  of  Regents  in  state  institu- 
tions, and  the  Board  of  Trustees  in  endowed 
institutions.  In  the  former  case  they  are 
either  elected  by  the  people  or  appointed  by  the 
Governor  and  confirmed  by  the  Senate  of  the 
state.  The  universities  of  Illinois  and  Ne- 
braska are  illustrations  of  the  former  method, 
and  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  and  CaHfornia  of 
the  latter.  They  usually  serve  a  given  term, 
part  of  them  retiring  at  one  time,  so  that  no 
complete  change  can  be  made  in  any  one  year. 
The  opportunity  is  open  for  bringing  in  political 
influences,  and  in  some  states  the  nomination 
is  a  party  nomination.  This  sometimes  works 
unfortunately,  but  as  a  rule  the  state  univer- 
sities have  been  free  from  the  disturbing  eflfects 
of  partisanship. 


I 


College  Administration  55 

The  Board  of  Trustees  of  an  endowed  college 
or  university  is  usually  self-perpetuating,  some- 
times chosen  for  life,  sometimes  for  a  term  of 
years.  There  is  an  increasing  tendency  to  give 
the  alumni  of  a  college  the  opportunity  to  nomi- 
nate and  sometimes  appoint  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  the  trustees.  At  Yale  there  is  a  board 
of  nineteen,  consisting  of  the  President,  ten  suc- 
cessors of  the  original  trustees,  who  form  a  self- 
perpetuating  body,  six  alumni  members,  and 
the  Governor  and  Lieutenant  Governor  of  the 
state  ex  officio.  The  alumni  members  are  chosen 
by  the  graduates  for  six  years,  one  going  out  of 
office  each  year.  Something  like  this  exists 
at  WilHams  except  that  the  term  is  five  years. 
At  Dartmouth  one  half  the  members,  not  ex 
officio^  are  nominated  by  the  alumni.  At 
Harvard  there  are  two  boards,  one  of  them, 
however,  with  mainly  advisory  powers.  The 
real  governing  body  is  **the  President  and 
fellows  of  Harvard  College,  consisting  of  seven 
men  who  still  act  under  the  Charter  of  1650,  in 
which  no  line  or  word  has  ever  been  changed."* 

The  board  is  the  final  authority  in  all  admin- 
istrative measures.  Acting  through  a  treasurer 
usually  salaried,   it  cares  for   the  endowment 

*C.  W.  EUot. 


56  The  American  College 

of  the  colleges.  It  regulates  the  expenditures, 
appoints  all  officers  and  teachers,  and,  gen- 
erally through  the  faculty,  may  make  all  rules 
for  the  management  of  the  college,  its  curricu- 
lum, its  discipline,  and  its  policy.  In  times 
past  this  control  was  very  definite  and  detailed. 
The  professors  were  often  considered  simply  as 
employees,  hired  to  perform  certain  duties  to  be 
discharged  at  the  will  or  whim  of  the  board 
without  other  reason  given  than  that  "it  was 
for  the  best  interests  of  the  college.''  Of  late, 
however,  there  is  a  greatly  increased  tendency  to 
pass  over  to  the  President  and  the  faculty  many 
functions  of  management,  and  to  consider  them 
partners  rather  than  subordinates  in  the  admin- 
istration of  the  college  affairs.  The  board  no 
longer  considers  or  determines  directly  or  in- 
directly special  cases  of  discipline,  minor  changes 
in  the  curriculum,  or  the  derailed  policy  of  the 
college  in  internal  arrangements.  It  determines 
the  salary  list,  the  distribution  of  the  annual 
income  among  the  teachers  and  departments, 
and  the  establishment  of  new  departments  affect- 
ing fundamentally  the  character  or  purposes  of 
the  college. 

This  change  has  resulted  in  more  sense  of 
responsibility   and   more   freedom   of  thinking 


College  Administration  57 

and  speaking  on  the  part  of  the  professors.  To 
what  extent  a  Board  of  Trustees  should  permit 
such  freedom  is  one  of  the  questions  of  the  day. 
Many  colleges  have  been  founded  by  denomi- 
nations. In  good  faith  the  trustees  have  ac- 
cepted the  conditions  imposed  by  the  founders 
or  donors  of  funds  and  have  agreed  to  conduct 
the  institution  in  such  a  way  as  to  build  these 
conditions  into  the  life  of  the  college.  In  this 
connection  it  is  fair  to  recognize  that  changes 
in  theory  and  purpose  are  sure  to  come  with 
the  years,  and  the  wishes  of  an  ancient  donor 
should  not  control  in  all  respects  the  responsi- 
bihty  of  present  trustees.  The  founder  him- 
self would  have  changed  with  the  times  had  he 
lived,  and  it  is  not  untrue  to  his  trust  to  make 
such  modifications  as  his  fair  judgment  would 
have  permitted.  But  the  professor  who  posi- 
tively is  out  of  sympathy  with  the  well-under- 
stood and  necessary  policy  of  a  college,  and  who 
publishes  the  divergence  in  a  way  to  interfere 
with  the  success  of  the  policy,  should  not  expect 
to  be  retained.  A  board  may  feel  bound  in 
honor  to  discharge  him  should  there  be  no 
easier  way. 

But  the  freedom  of  speech  of  professors  has 
been  limited  in  ways  that  have  far  less  justifi- 


58  The  American  College 

cation  than  this.  There  have  been  cases  where 
one  or  more  competent  men  have  been  removed 
because  their  political  views  differed  from  those 
of  a  controlling  faction  of  the  board,  which 
wished  the  places  for  its  own  adherents.  There 
have  been  cases  where  professors  have  pub- 
lished economic  or  social  theories  which  certain 
members  of  the  Governing  Board  considered 
unsound  and  dangerous  to  have  instilled  into 
the  thought  of  students.  There  have  been 
cases  where  some  hoped-for  donor  demanded  to 
be  propitiated  by  the  sacrifice  of  an  offending 
teacher.  There  have  been  cases  where  a  tried 
and  faithful  professor  has  been  dismissed  in  old 
age  purely  because  a  young,  unmarried  man 
would  do  his  work  more  efficiently  and  for  less 
money. 

The  duty  of  the  board  in  some  of  these  cases 
may  be  difficult  to  perform.  As  a  rule,  how- 
ever, it  is  safer  to  err  on  the  side  of  large  freedom 
for  an  efficient  and  experienced  member  of  the 
teaching  force.  If  a  young  man  with  more 
enthusiasm  than  judgment,  and  with  views  which 
most  sensible  people  consider  morally  or  so- 
cially dangerous,  unnecessarily  and  publicly  ad- 
vertises them,  it  may  be  quite  proper  to  drop 
him  from  the  corps.    Indeed,  such  a  man  should 


I 


College  Administration  59 

be  engaged  only  for  one  year  or  a  short  term,  so 
that  the  severance  of  relations  would  come  natu- 
rally, and  no  obligations  for  retention  should  rest 
with  either  party. 

Then  certain  men  with  intellectual  or  moral 
weaknesses,  which  make  their  teaching  or 
their  influence  greatly  undesirable,  when  dis- 
missed have  announced  themselves  martyrs 
to  the  cause  of  "academic  freedom."  There 
must  be  some  way  to  part  with  an  inefficient 
teacher,  and  trustees  must  fairly  face  the  ques- 
tion, remembering  that  their  duty  to  the  trust 
is  the  first  consideration,  and,  while  doing  no  in- 
justice to  any  one,  they  must  insure  the  integ- 
rity of  the  college  against  preventable  maladies. 

The  best  sort  of  men  to  constitute  a  Board 
of  Trustees  are  business  and  professional  men 
of  good  judgment,  themselves  fairly  educated, 
interested  in  education,  and  students  of  its  prob- 
lems. A  board  composed  of  teachers  would 
be  unable  to  handle  the  financial  duties  of 
investment  and  expenditure,  and  would  prob- 
ably not  meet  the  administrative  questions 
at  the  college  with  open  and  practical  minds. 
A  board  of  uninterested  men  of  wealth,  as  too 
many  boards  are,  is  no  support  to  the  President, 
except  insofar  as  they  supply  him  with  money. 


6o  The  American  College 

Men  are  often  selected  for  such  positions  not 
because  they  are  expected  to  be  efficient  in  man- 
aging the  college  affairs  but  because  their  names 
may  advertise  the  college,  or  their  coffers  be  at 
its  service.  Presidents  and  faculties  are  glad  to 
have  back  of  them  an  inteUigent  and  judicious 
body  which  will  understand  their  policies  and 
their  difficulties  and  is  willing  to  listen  to  their 
plans  for  improvement  and  expansion.  Too 
often  a  meeting  of  the  board,  which  in  some 
cases  occurs  but  once  or  twice  a  year,  is  oc- 
cupied by  routine  business  only  without  illumi- 
nating discussion  or  a  real  comprehension  of  the 
problems  to  be  solved. 

A  small  board  of  from  seven  to  fifteen  men  of 
the  right  sort  is  usually  more  effective  than  a 
larger  one.  There  is  more  freedom  of  discussion 
and  more  efficient  action.  A  large  board  must 
usually  act  through  an  executive  committee, 
and  the  members  not  on  this  committee  often 
lose  interest.  Much  work  is  involved  in  the 
proper  performance  of  such  functions.  The  cor- 
responding progress  of  other  institutions  should 
be  known,  as  well  as  the  peculiar  questions 
which  belong  to  the  patronage,  the  history,  and 
the  personnel  of  the  college.  The  men  should 
believe  in  education  not  simply  abstractly,  but 


I 


College  Administration  6l 

because  they  have  either  experienced  it  in  large 
degree  or  forcibly  felt  its  want  and  know  what 
it  brings  to  its  possessor.  They  should  be  gener- 
ous with  their  means  to  meet  the  financial  de- 
mands of  their  college,  and  aid  the  executive 
officers  in  bringing  other  capital  into  its  service. 
They  should  give  to  it  the  same  intelHgent  and 
sacrificing  care  that  they  extend  to  their  own 
business,  and  not  come  to  a  meeting  with  a 
vacant  mind  or  a  closed  heart. 

The  President.  The  president  of  a  college 
sustains  varying  relations  and  duties  to  the 
students,  the  faculty,  the  trustees,  the  alumni, 
the  patrons,  and  the  neighboring  pubHc.  To 
these  may  be  added  his  duties  to  the  college 
itself  insofar  as  these  are  not  included  in  any 
of  the  above. 

The  ideal  President  will  be  to  the  student 
a  paternal  adviser  and  a  strict  disciplinarian. 
He  will  seek  and  possess  their  confidence  and 
will  win  their  support  for  the  important  meas- 
ures relating  to  the  welfare  of  the  college.  He 
will  quietly  and  persistently  preach  his  doc- 
trines, till  some  day  he  will  probably  see,  per- 
haps rather  suddenly,  pubHc  opinion  change 
and  accept  his  views.  If  this  does  not  come 
about  he  had  better  reconsider  his  position  for 


62  The  American  College 

he  is  likely  to  be  wrong.  The  settled,  per- 
manent opinion  of  the  mature  and  thoughtful 
members  of  his  undergraduate  body  is  usually 
right,  for  the  time  at  least.  He  will  seek  to 
guide  rather  than  force  this  opinion  and  will 
carry  it  along  with  him  by  gentle  steps  and 
frank  presentations  of  practical  conditions.  He 
will  seldom  be  dogmatic  or  arbitrary.  He 
may  sometimes,  until  he  gets  well  estabHshed, 
have  to  take  a  firm  stand  in  opposition  to  a 
temporary  false  sentiment  or  a  bad  custom. 
But  he  will  do  this  in  such  a  way  that  returning 
reason  will  justify  his  poHcy,  and  he  will  be 
stronger  and  more  respected  for  his  firmness. 
He  will  be  shrewd  enough  to  meet  and  often 
defeat  an  objectionable  student  enterprise,  and 
discover  oflFenders  not  by  spying  or  through 
detective  agencies  but  by  open  knowledge  of 
student  character,  collective  or  individual.  He 
will  play  the  game,  if  it  be  so  considered,  ac- 
cording to  the  rules,  and  win.  If  he  has  to 
face  immoral  conditions  which  are  playing  havoc 
in  his  college,  he  will  strive  first  to  remedy 
them  by  influence  and  reason,  and  will  not 
hesitate  to  enlist  the  moral  elements  in  the  col- 
lege to  his  support.  He  will  not  seek  infor- 
mation from  the  students  against  an  associate. 


t 


College  Administration  63 

If  it  comes  he  will  not  use  it  in  a  discipli- 
nary way,  but  he  will,  with  them  as  allies,  fight 
the  battle  of  decency,  withdrawing  from  the 
other  side  the  neutral  students  who  have  been 
innocently  drawn  into  wrong  associations,  and 
reclaiming  such  as  can  be  reached  by  fair  in- 
fluence. But  when  he  finds  that  there  are  some 
who  are  permanently  vicious  and  irreclaimable, 
he  will  not  hesitate  to  insist  on  their  with- 
drawal, nor  can  appeals  from  associates  or 
family  move  him  from  this  position.  His  final 
attitude  will  be  more  of  sorrow  than  of  anger 
or  triumph,  and  there  will  be  no  bravado  or 
public  announcements  of  future  penalties,  for  col- 
lege students  cannot  be  frightened  into  good  mo- 
rality. 

These  disturbances  will,  however,  be  only 
temporary  and  will  become  less  frequent  as  he 
remains  at  his  post.  His  usual  attitude  will  be 
rather  as  a  wise  leader  of  student  opinion  into 
right  paths  than  as  an  opponent  of  evil  or  in- 
flicter  of  penalties.  He  will  see  dangers  as  they 
come,  and  when  inadvertently  he  receives  a  boy 
whose  influence  is  likely  to  be  demoralizing  he 
will  reform  him  or  quietly  remove  him.  But  he 
will  always  have  more  faith  in  building  up  the 
good  than  in  attacking  the  evil.     He  will  in  time 


64  The  American  College 

create  such  a  healthy  college  sentiment  that,  like 
a  healthy  body,  it  will  throw  ofF  diseases  itself, 
even  when  exposed  to  them.  As  his  old  students 
return  and  as  their  matured  thoughts  justify 
his  past  treatment  to  them,  their  influence  will 
be  great  with  the  undergraduates,  and  thus  his 
power  and  policy  will  prevail  among  a  company 
of  wilUng  followers. 

He  will  know  how  to  talk  to  his  college  as  a 
whole,  not  too  frequently,  for  much  talking  is  a 
weariness  to  hearers  and  a  weakness  to  himself, 
but  wisely,  tactfully,  and,  if  he  has  it  in  him, 
humorously  and  interestingly.  His  talks  will  be 
based  on  current  events  in  the  college  near  to  the 
students'  hearts  or  of  general  interest.  He  will 
use  these  in  such  a  way  that  the  moral  will  be 
evident  and  need  not  be  expressed.  He  will  also 
talk  to  them  informally  in  groups  or  alone,  on 
all  sorts  of  questions,  studies,  games,  politics, 
great  men  whom  he  knows  by  reputation  or  ac- 
quaintance— whatever  interests  an  acquisitive 
youth.  His  character  will  shine  through  it  all, 
and  he  will  not  need  to  preach  to  have  his  influ- 
ence. 

But  sometimes  he  will  preach.  When  his 
heart  fills  with  a  desire  for  the  good  of  the  Hves 
for  which  he  has  assumed  a  responsibility  and 


College  Administration  65 

words  come  often  unbidden  as  he  faces  them  as 
a  group  of  his  friends,  he  will  give  them  the 
results  of  his  best  thoughts  and  feelings  in  a 
way  which  will  convince  them  that  he  is  not 
primarily  a  taskmaster  or  disciplinarian,  but  a 
man  who  is  giving  his  life  for  a  cause,  and  not 
only  for  an  abstract  cause,  but  for  them  as 
individuals;  that  he  has  a  message  for  them 
which  he  must  deHver,  and  that  he  feels  that 
the  very  future  of  one  or  more  of  them  lies 
in  the  proper  use  of  that  hour.  When  he  thus 
feels  he  will  preach,  and  his  sermon  will  not  be 
forgotten  by  some  of  them. 

The  ideal  President  in  his  relation  to  his 
faculty  will  be  a  leader  rather  than  an  employer. 
He  or  his  predecessors  will  have  nominated  them 
to  their  positions  and  will  have  had  something 
to  do  with  fixing  their  titles,  their  duties,  and 
their  salaries.  But  he  will  work  with  them  as 
an  associate  for  a  common  end.  He  will  preside 
at  their  faculty  meetings  and  he  will  encourage 
absolute  freedom  of  honest;  opinion  on  any 
subject  which  pertains  to  the  welfare  of  the 
college.  Their  ability  to  grasp  the  varied  ar- 
guments and  see  the  viewpoints  of  each  other, 
to  detect  fallacies  and  unworthy  motives  will 
be  an  excellent  guide  to  him  in  forming  opinions 


66  The  American  College 

of  their  habits  of  mind  and  capacity  to  fill  out 
the  full  measure  of  his  ideals  as  to  their  duties 
and  influences. 

The  feeling  farthest  removed  from  his  mind 
will  be  that  of  jealousy.  He  would  only  rejoice 
if  every  one  were  a  greater  and  better  man  than 
himself,  though  this  is  improbable  with  the 
ideal  President.  But  every  triumph  of  theirs 
in  teaching  and  healthy  influence  and  in  re- 
search and  publication  will  be  an  occasion  for 
his  sincere  congratulation.  The  more  and  the 
better  their  accomplishments  the  more  satis- 
faction will  he  take,  and  perhaps  there  may 
creep  into  his  mind  a  measure  of  self-satis- 
faction that  he  has  been  able  to  make  such  good 
selections.  He  will  give  them  every  aid  possible 
to  secure  equipment  for  their  work,  and  will 
strive  to  keep  every  dollar  from  less  worthy 
appropriation,  that  it  may  increase  their  salaries. 
The  younger  members  he  will  aid  by  his  coun- 
sel and  advice,  curbing  their  freshness,  their 
tendency  to  make  too  exacting  demands  upon 
their  classes,  their  tendency  to  beheve  that 
everything  needs  renovation  and  that  they  are 
to  be  the  renovators.  At  the  same  time  he  will 
strive  to  retain  their  enthusiasm  and  willing- 
ness to  do  hard  work.     The  older  men  he  will 


College  Administration  (y'j 

treat  as  partners  and  friends,  deferring  to  their 
judgment  upon  all  matters  relating  to  their 
departments,  asking  freely  their  advice  upon 
subjects  of  general  concern.  If  he  can  secure 
in  return  confidence  and  full  cooperation  he  will 
be  satisfied.  But  he  will  never  put  any  pressure 
upon  any  one  to  conceal  his  honest  views  by 
withholding  promotion  in  title  or  salary.  Criti- 
cism of  his  policies  or  methods,  if  well-meant 
and  well-expressed,  will  always  be  welcome. 

The  President,  no  matter  how  ideal,  is  in  one 
sense  an  employee  of  the  Board  of  Trustees. 
They  have  selected  him,  fixed  his  salary,  some- 
what defined  his  duties  and  powers,  and  may 
discharge  him.  It  is  better,  however,  all  around 
that  this  relation  should  be  kept  in  the  back- 
ground. Whatever  he  owes  to  the  board  as  a 
whole  he  does  not  owe  to  its  individual  members, 
and  will  not  be  at  their  beck  and  call.  His 
main  relation  to  them  will  be  as  a  member  of 
their  board  himself,  which  he  should  always  be 
ex  officio.  He  will  in  time,  by  his  superior 
knowledge  of  the  situation  and  its  problems, 
with  which  he  is  in  daily  contact,  become  the 
most  influential  member  and  can  usually  direct 
their  policies.  They  are  busy  men,  with  many 
other  duties,  and  their  relation  to  the  college 


68  The  American  College 

does  not  take  precedence  of  all  other  relations. 
They  are  willing  not  to  interfere  with  details, 
and  are  glad  to  have  the  questions  upon  which 
they  are  to  legislate  brought  up  to  them  fully 
digested,  and  backed  by  the  authority  of  one 
who  can  give  all  needed  information.  Our  Pres- 
ident will  have  all  this  at  his  command,  and 
without  him  a  meeting  will  be  largely  pointless. 
He  will  thus  be  able  to  impress  his  ideas  upon 
his  board  and  lead  them  as  he  does  his  students 
and  faculty  by  more  exact  and  extended  knowl- 
edge and  more  wise  suggestions. 

To  the  graduate  body  our  President  usually 
has  no  organic  relation.  Nevertheless,  the 
alumni  are  so  important  to  the  college,  so  in- 
terested in  its  welfare,  if  he  has  been  there  for 
some  years  so  associated  with  him  in  the  past, 
that  his  relations  with  them  are  of  the  highest 
consequence.  These  will  be  individually  the 
relations  of  friendship,  and  as  an  organization 
the  relations  of  workers  for  a  common  cause. 
He  will  act  with  them  and  through  them.  He 
will  meet  them  at  their  alumni  and  class  dinners 
as  a  welcome  guest,  and  will  tell  them  freely  his 
plans  for  the  future,  as  well  as  the  present  con- 
ditions. He  will  ask  their  aid  in  money  con- 
tributions  and   in   influence   over   prospective 


College  Administration  69 

students  of  the  right  sort.  He  will  bring  their 
weight  to  bear  in  furthering  reforms,  or  oppos- 
ing dangerous  tendencies,  and  few  boards  or 
students  can  stand  against  it.  He  will  make 
them  see  that  it  is  possible  to  have  better 
customs  and  conditions  than  those  of  their  own 
days  which  they  are  wont  to  idealize,  as  their 
memories  go  back  to  the  happy  years  of  under- 
graduate life.  He  will  carry  them  along  with 
him  in  the  dangerous  days  of  revolution  when 
it  seems  necessary  somewhat  to  break  with 
the  past  and  introduce  changes  to  which  their 
thoughts  have  not  been  accustomed.  He  will 
respond  to  an  invitation  and  travel  far  to  meet 
any  little  group  which  desires  his  presence,  and 
cordially  cooperate  with  any  movement  to  erect 
class  or  fraternity  memorials,  and  in  general 
stimulate  any  practical  form  which  their  senti- 
ment of  loyalty  to  the  college  may  take. 

To  the  patrons  our  President  will  be  frankly 
cooperative  in  all  that  affects  the  welfare  of 
their  children.  Vicious  home  training  is  often 
responsible  for  college  troubles.  It  is  said  that 
Jerry  McAuley  has  stated  that  in  his  work 
among  the  lower  classes  of  New  York  City  he 
never  knew  a  man  to  be  permanently  reclaimed 
who  did  not  have  a  good  mother.     A  college 


70  The  American  College 

may  succeed  in  this,  but  it  is  a  difficult  task. 
It  is  only  hopeful  where  President  and  parent 
will  work  together.  Fullest  information  should 
be  sent  home  of  the  doings  of  the  students;  so 
frequently  that  a  message  will  not  be  assumed 
to  mean  an  approaching  suspension.  A  plain 
letter  asking  parental  advice  to  the  boy  is  often 
the  most  effective  penalty  for  a  misdemeanor. 
The  boy  is  lazy  or  drifting  into  bad  company, 
or  has  chosen  his  studies  unwisely,  or  is  too 
active  in  athletics  or  other  recreation.  A  letter 
or  interview  asking  the  parent  to  sustain  the 
college  discipline  will  often  avert  trouble  and 
open  a  new  career.  Of  course  the  President 
must  know  the  situation  well.  It  is  easy  to 
give  wrong  impressions.  A  parent  says  casu- 
ally, "How  is  my  boy  doing?"  It  is  easiest  to 
say  a  pleasant  word  and  pass  the  matter  by. 
But  if  he  can  speak  intelligently  and  in  detail  it 
is  better,  and  he  will  never  for  politeness  sake 
say  words  of  praise  unless  they  are  deserved. 

To  the  community  in  which  he  lives  our  Pres- 
ident may  have  no  necessary  obligations  as 
President.  But  as  a  citizen,  and  one  personally 
better  informed  and  with  more  of  the  qualities 
of  leadership  than  the  average  citizen,  he  has 
large  responsibilities.     It  is  much  to  his  college 


College  Administration  71 

to  have  around  it  good  sanitary  and  moral  con- 
ditions, and  the  President  may  belong  to  and, 
if  need  be,  head  associations  having  these  ends 
in  view.  He  should  give  to  them  the  wisest  aid 
based  on  personal  knowledge  of  neighboring  con- 
ditions and  what  has  been  elsewhere  done  under 
similar  circumstances.  Such  work  is  now  so 
well  organized  and  studied  that  there  is  no 
need  to  go  at  it  blindly,  and  if  he  has  not  time 
to  know  it  as  a  specialist  he  should  know  where 
to  get  the  specialist  advice  adapted  to  the  occa- 
sion. 

Hence  he  will  always  have  something  of 
community  spirit  for  the  sake  of  the  community 
of  which  his  college  is  a  part.  If  he  can  root 
out  a  drinking  or  dissipating  resort,  if  he  can 
influence  the  creation  of  proper  housing  or 
street  conditions,  if  he  can  aid  poor  neighbors 
in  finding  employment  or  otherwise  improving 
their  lots  he  will  aid  his  college  and  perform  a 
citizen's  duty  in  his  locality  where  it  may  count 
for  more  than  if  he  were  in  a  hall  of  legislature 
or  the  pulpit  of  a  church.  Our  ideal  President 
will  be  active  and  intelligent  in  the  reform 
work  of  his  neighborhood. 

It  may  be  admitted  that  such  men  as  we 
have  described  our  ideal  President  to  be   are 


72  The  American  College 

rare  in  America,  indeed  non-existent.  The 
possession  of  all  these  qualities,  the  combination 
of  the  man  and  the  place,  may  be  ideal  only. 
But  there  are  some  that  approach  it  in  some 
points  if  not  in  all,  and  there  is  by  a  process  of 
natural  selection  a  reasonable  measure  of  success 
in  coming  up  to  the  standard  in  many  of  the 
colleges  of  the  country. 

There  is  no  such  official  in  connection  with 
European  schools  of  any  grade  as  the  American 
college  President.  The  head  of  an  English 
college  has  but  little  authority  over  his  fellows, 
and  his  main  distinction  is  to  appear  on  public 
occasions  most  impressively.  The  head  of  a 
university  is  even  more  a  figurehead.  The  same 
is  true  with  some  modifications  in  Germany. 
But  in  America  he  may  be  an  autocrat,  a  wise 
and  benevolent  one,  it  is  true,  if  he  means  to 
hold  his  position,  but  with  powers  most  ex- 
tensive and  conclusive.  His  board  can  dis- 
place him,  but  while  the  college  prospers  they 
very  seldom  do.  He  selects  his  associates  of  the 
faculty,  may  fix  their  salaries  and  discontinue 
them.  The  college  life  of  his  students  is  often 
in  his  hands,  and  the  ultimate  decision  of  college 
policies  frequently  resides  with  him.  To  the 
public  he  represents  the  institution,  and  some- 


College  Administration  y^ 

times  in  his  own  eyes  the  prosperity  of  the 
college  is  somewhat  dependent  on  his  occupation 
of  the  post. 

It  is  a  position  which  possesses  many  ad- 
vantages for  the  fit  man.  There  are  not  the 
great  financial  rewards  of  the  high  places  in 
other  professions.  The  average  salary  of  the 
American  college  President  is  perhaps  equal  to 
that  of  a  third-rate  doctor  or  lawyer,  while  the 
best  situations  yield  only  a  moderate  income. 
Against  this  may  be  placed  a  life  not  devoid  of 
distractions  and  disquietude  but  full  of  solid 
satisfaction  and  opportunities  for  service.  It 
brings  him  into  contact  with  scholarly  men 
who  are  well  worth  knowing.  Its  vacations, 
while  not  so  free  as  those  of  his  professors,  are  a 
welcome  and  well-earned  relief  which  come 
frequently  and  last  long.  The  recognition  of 
his  value  by  many  an  old  student  is  often  un- 
stintingly  given,  and  he  lives  in  the  grateful 
memory  of  many  a  man  whose  youth  he  has 
shaped.  He  is  able  to  build  his  life  into  the  life 
of  an  institution,  sure  that  however  long  it  may 
live  and  whatever  changes  may  occur  much  that 
he  has  done  will  be  lasting.  Is  there  any  better 
career  for  a  man  than  to  modify  for  good  the 
life  of  a  college,  large  or  small  ?  to  see  it  grow  in 


74  The  American  College 

his  hands  from  chaos  to  efficiency,  from  poverty 
to  wealth,  from  low  ideals  to  high  ?  to  note  the 
changes  as  they,  unconsciously  to  most  of  the 
students,  shape  themselves  through  his  quiet 
influence  into  accord  with  his  hopes  and  plans? 
to  feel  the  increased  confidence  of  patrons  and 
the  community  and  to  know  that  it  has  an 
honest  and  reliable  basis  of  character  which 
fears  no  revelations  of  weakness  or  shams  ?  to 
watch  the  growth  of  a  cooperative,  harmonious 
spirit  in  all  the  elements  of  college  interests — 
is  not  this  joy  enough  for  any  one's  life?  Such 
a  life  of  serviceableness  may  well  excite  the 
ambitions  of  a  young  man  conscious  of  his 
powers,  willing  to  do  a  man's  work  in  the  world, 
and  to  leave  behind  him  an  enduring,  if  modest, 
monument. 

Perhaps  the  popular  conception  of  the  main 
presidential  duty  is  to  raise  money  for  the 
college.  It  is  assumed  that  he  is  often  in  the 
offices  of  rich  men  seeking  contributions,  or 
attending  the  bedsides  of  wealthy  women  of 
means  dictating  bequests  in  the  wills.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly the  duty  of  most  college  presidents 
to  add  to  the  financial  resources  of  their  insti- 
tutions. That  many  have  been  selected  with 
this  object  mainly  in  view  is  also  true.     But 


College  Administration  75 

there  are  various  ways  to  accomplish  this  end. 
Direct  solicitation  is  not  always  the  most  pro- 
ductive. One  distinguished  President  has  said 
that  his  duty  was  "to  create  a  vacuum"  into 
which  money  would  naturally  flow.  To  build 
up  an  institution  worthy  of  support  with  certain 
distinguishing  features  which  commend  them- 
selves to  solid  men  of  means  is  often  the  surest 
road  to  financial  aid.  To  create  a  scholarly 
atmosphere,  a  high  standard  of  morals,  a 
modest,  useful  body  of  graduates,  will  in  time 
secure  the  approbation  of  the  public  and  often- 
times its  pecuniary  contributions.  Endow- 
ments for  colleges,  like  happiness  for  individuals, 
come  oftenest  as  by-products.  The  man  may 
best  succeed  who  stays  most  at  home  and  directs 
his  energies  to  the  solution  of  internal  problems. 

The  successful  President  will  have  a  body  of 
alumni  who  will  respond  to  requests  for  money. 
At  Yale  and  some  other  places  they  are  organ- 
ized and  many  of  them  pledge  themselves  to 
give  sums,  often  small  but  in  the  aggregate 
quite  large,  yearly  to  the  college. 

There  have  been  certain  liberal  givers  to  col- 
leges out  of  their  millions.  These  have  usually 
coupled  their  gifts  with  conditions  that  others 
should  give  larger  amounts  before  making  their 


y6  The  American  College 

own  available.  Two  of  these — ^Andrew  Carnegie 
and  John  D.  Rockefeller — to  save  themselves 
the  task  of  examining  all  cases  have  created 
trusts  from  which  such  appropriations  may  be 
made,  and  vast  sums  have  gone  into  the  treas- 
uries of  colleges  directly  and  indirectly  as  the 
result  of  these  investigations.  The  total  pri- 
vate benefactions  to  the  colleges  of  the  United 
States  for  191 2-1 3  was  about  ^25,cxx),ooo.  And 
this  amount,  not  unusually  large  of  recent  years, 
is  largely  due  to  the  energy,  tact,  and  efforts  of 
the  presidents  of  the  colleges. 

The  Faculty.  President  Hyde  of  Bowdoin 
College  is  reported  to  have  expressed  the  opinion 
that  if  a  President  should  be  able  to  select 
yearly  three  or  four  men  for  his  teaching  force 
of  just  the  right  sort  he  would  have  earned  his 
salary  if  he  did  nothing  else.  The  trustees  and 
President  attend  to  the  machinery  of  the  in- 
stitution, but  the  teachers  do  the  work  for  which 
it  exists.  They  meet  the  students  daily  in  the 
lecture  rooms.  It  is  their  influence  and  eflFort 
which  determine  whether  the  life  of  the  college 
is  worth  while.  To  bring  a  class  of  young 
people  into  effective  contact  with  men  of  learn- 
ing and  character  is  the  whole  object  of  the 
accumulated  endowment,  of  the  buildings  and 


College  Administration  77 

equipment,  of  the  labors  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees,  and  of  the  management  of  the  Presi- 
dent. These  agencies  are  useful  insofar  as  they 
select  strong  men  for  teachers,  and  supply  them 
with  the  means  to  do  their  work. 

When  a  young  man  just  fresh  from  his  studies 
is  given  a  place  in  a  college  it  is  usually  with  the 
title  of  instructor.  He  is  while  in  this  grade 
appointed  a  year  at  a  time,  and  his  tenure  may 
terminate  at  the  close  of  the  year.  If  he  re- 
tains his  place  he  is  advanced  through  the 
grades  usually  of  assistant  professor,  associate 
professor,  and  professor.  The  first  of  these  is 
for  a  term  of  years  with  gradually  increasing 
salary.  The  professor  in  the  best  colleges  is 
assumed  to  be  a  permanent  official  with  a  fixed 
maximum  compensation  for  his  services.  There 
are,  however,  in  some  places,  even  in  the  ranks  of 
professors,  variations  of  salary  dependent  on 
the  qualities  of  the  men  who  hold  the  positions. 
There  is  something  to  be  said  both  for  and 
against  the  plan  of  making  separate  arrange- 
ments with  every  man.  Some  professors,  by 
virtue  of  their  teaching  or  influencing  or  schol- 
arly values,  are  worth  more  than  others.  The 
best  of  these  will  often  have  opportunities 
to  better  their  conditions  at  other  places.     A 


yS  The  American  College 

college  with  a  moderate  endowment  may  not  be 
able  to  afford  to  raise  all  professors'  salaries  to  a 
point  which  would  ward  off  such  competition, 
but  may  for  a  few.  One  really  good  man  is 
worth  several  second-rate  ones,  and  to  retain 
even  one  or  two  of  large  and  deserved  repu- 
tation will  add  to  the  standing  and  efficiency  of 
the  college.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  ten- 
dency to  create  jealousy  and  disunion  if  one  man 
is  advanced  above  another  of  the  same  rank. 

The  value  of  a  professor  is  made  up  of  various 
factors.  Capacity  to  be  a  good  teacher  is  one 
of  them.  Boys  often  complain,  and  sometimes 
justly,  that  the  college  teaching  is  inferior  to  that 
which  they  have  found  in  their  schools.  Es- 
pecially in  the  large  colleges  it  is  not  infrequently 
the  custom  to  fill  the  instructorships  with  in- 
experienced young  graduates,  presumably  well- 
informed  as  to  the  subject  matter,  but  quite 
unable  to  present  it  effectively,  and  to  these 
untried  youths  is  given  the  freshman  class  to 
practise  upon.  The  student  never  meets  the 
great  men  whose  names  and  degrees  adorn  the 
first  pages  of  the  catalogue  until  he  reaches  the 
upper  classes.  Here  the  small  college,  if  a  good 
college,  has  a  great  advantage.  For  the  full 
professors  teach  their  subjects  usually  from  the 


College  Administration  79 

bottom  up,  and  the  first  contact  of  the  beginner 
is  with  the  best  men  of  the  faculty.  A  vertical 
rather  than  a  horizontal  division  of  the  cur- 
riculum is  arranged. 

It  is  also  somewhat  fashionable  among  college 
teachers  to  look  with  scorn  upon  any  professional 
training  in  the  art  of  teaching.  The  normal 
schools  of  the  country  are  given  up  to  the  train- 
ing of  teachers  of  lower  grades,  and  the  college 
man  never  gets  into  them.  He  does  not  know 
the  literature  of  the  profession,  nor  the  common 
methods  by  which  the  trained  teacher  eases  the 
strain  of  the  first  years.  If  he  has  taught  in  a 
secondary  school  he  has  learned  many  things  to 
avoid,  and  how  to  do  it,  and  his  experience  will 
count  for  much  in  the  college.  If  not  he 
naturally  tries  the  methods  of  his  own  pro- 
fessors, from  whom  he  feels  that  he  has  received 
the  most,  and  happy  is  the  young  teacher  who 
has  been  blessed  with  samples  of  good  teaching 
in  his  undergraduate  days,  though  it  may  be 
that  he  will  not  use  them  because,  like  Saul's 
armor,  they  have  not  been  proved. 

But  in  time,  if  the  faculty  is  in  him,  he  learns 
to  teach.  He  finds  himself  in  sympathy  with 
his  class,  and  by  a  method  of  his  own  he  speaks 
to  their  conditions. 


8o  The  American  College 

But  more  than  ability  to  handle  his  material 
successfully  is  demanded  of  the  college  professor. 
He  must  be  something  of  a  scholar.  The  time 
when  a  teacher  can  study  the  lesson  of  his  class 
the  day  before  or  the  month  before  and  face 
the  young  people  with  an  easy  mind  has  passed. 
He  must  be  prepared  for  many  searching 
questions,  and  must  have  at  his  command  a 
large  amount  of  literature  of  the  subject  and  the 
thoughts  of  its  best  exponents.  The  degree 
coveted  by  most  college  teachers,  Doctor  of 
Philosophy,  is  supposed  to  give  its  possessor  the 
necessary  knowledge  of  this  sort  to  start  him  in 
his  work.  From  the  best  institutions  it  is  the 
result  of  from  three  to  four  years*  graduate 
work,  capped  by  a  searching  oral  examination 
and  a  thesis  which  is  supposed  to  show  some 
original  research.  Much  of  the  knowledge 
gained  is  not  available  in  the  classroom,  which 
is  indeed  the  case  with  much  knowledge  in  any 
field,  but  the  degree  is  an  assurance  of  respect- 
able attainments  which  will  justify  its  possessor 
in  admitting  his  ignorance  of  many  things  with- 
out loss  of  prestige. 

The  degree  is  not,  however,  an  assurance  of 
success  in  every  case.  Many  men  who  have 
more  or  less  failed  in  teaching  as  the  result  of 


College  Administration  8i 

natural  defects  hope  to  remedy  their  errors  by 
obtaining  the  Ph.  D.  of  a  university,  and  start- 
ing again  with  new  eclat.  They  may  often  gain 
the  degree,  for  their  deficiencies  are  not  of  the 
sort  which  prevent  them  from  acquiring  the 
knowledge  and  experience  which  will  satisfy  their 
examiners.  But  their  old  difficulties  in  manner 
or  method  in  the  classroom  still  remain,  and 
a  poor  teacher  cannot  lift  himself  into  the  ranks 
of  the  first-rate  by  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge and  the  training  of  study.  To  know  the  early 
history  of  the  possessor  of  a  doctor's  degree, 
however  brilliant  his  university  course  may 
have  been,  is  important  in  making  the  selection. 
His  teachers,  however  honest  they  may  be,  are 
often  unable  to  judge  as  to  his  fitness  to  meet 
the  exigencies  of  college  demands  in  some  in- 
stitutions. Natural  inability  to  control  a  class 
or  to  be  acceptable  to  it  are  not  always  over- 
come by  further  study. 

The  unfortunate  French  professor  who  would 
vigorously  threaten  a  class  to  their  great  merri- 
ment, "I  will  kill  you,"  "I  will  hang  you  up  by 
the  heels,"  and  many  another  poor  fellow  whose 
remarks  and  actions  were  equally  unwise,  ought 
not  to  try  the  hazardous  experiment  of  class 
teaching.     How  the   old   students   gloat   over 


82  The  American  College 

such  weak  men  and  the  traps  they  have  fallen 
into,  how  they  enjoy  their  efforts  to  extricate 
themselves  from  an  unfortunate  situation  largely 
of  their  own  making,  and  how  finally  they 
become  unpopular  and  contemned  for  a  rash 
effort  to  break  the  mesh  into  which  they  have 
fallen,  would  be  interesting  if  it  were  not  so  fatal 
to  all  usefulness  and  efficiency.  Such  men  are 
often  excellent  scholars  and  worthy  men,  but 
they  are  in  the  wrong  place. 

!For  besides  being  a  teacher  and  scholar,  the 
ideal  college  professor  must  be  very  much  of  a 
man.  He  will  need  to  possess  the  manners  and 
feelings  of  a  gentleman,  the  instincts  of  a  man  of 
the  world,  the  personality  of  a  strong  character, 
and  the  sympathies  and  sense  of  duty  of  a 
devotee.  He  will  look  on  his  students  not  as  so 
much  material  into  whom  he  will  instil  the 
subject-matter  of  his  language  or  science,  but  as 
pieces  of  humanity  with  many-sided  interests 
and  possibilities  for  whose  best  development  he 
is  somewhat  responsible.  His  teaching  from 
the  narrow  point  of  view  of  his  subject  will  be 
more  effective  if  he  touch  the  springs  of  human 
nature  which  lie  back  of  the  intellectual  oper- 
ations of  his  students.  Sometimes  he  may  do 
this  by  a  real  interest  in  their  problems  which 


College  Administration  83 

shows  itself  by  social  intercourse  and  intellectual 
sympathy  outside  the  lecture  room.  Some- 
times he  will  gain  the  hearing  of  his  class  by  a 
ready  sense  of  humor  in  meeting  a  difficult 
situation.  Thus  a  new  teacher  conquered  his 
way,  when  the  class  bombarded  his  room  with 
coal,  by  remarking:  "I  have  been  asked  my 
salary.  I  will  now  tell  inquiring  friends  that  it 
is  one  thousand  dollars,  and  the  coal  thrown  in." 
Another  man,  whose  disciplinary  duties  covered 
the  case  of  students  stealing  ("ragging**  they 
called  it)  shop  signs  with  which  to  decorate 
their  rooms,  suggested  to  them  as  a  Biblical 
motto:  "An  evil  and  adulterous  generation 
seeketh  after  a  sign.'*  Again  the  story  is  told 
of  John  Stuart  Blackie  of  Edinburgh  that  having 
written  on  his  board,  "Professor  Blackie  will 
meet  his  classes  to-day,'*  when  he  came  into  the 
room  he  found  that  some  ingenious  student  had 
rubbed  out  the  first  letter  of  ''classes.*'  He 
immediately  went  to  the  board  and  rubbed  out 
the  second  letter. 

Then  if  a  man  is  really  worthy  of  respect  from 
his  learning  and  character  his  very  oddities  will 
aid  him.  Almost  every  college  has  some  strong 
original  character  whose  pecuHarities  are  talked 
about  whenever  his  old  students  get  together. 


84  The  American  College 

and  whose  lessons  are  the  better  remembered 
and  himself  the  more  popular  for  his  quaint 
manner  or  his  abrupt  or  even  arbitrary  dis- 
cipline. 

The  small  college  of  all  institutions  in  America 
is  the  place  where  a  man  of  strong  character  and 
winning  personality  will  have  influence.  He 
can  mould  not  only  the  mental  habits  but  the 
aspirations  and  conduct  of  the  young  people 
under  his  care  in  a  way  which  the  university 
cannot  or  will  not  do.  **The  ideals  and  spirit 
of  this  place,"  said  in  effect  a  professor  in  one 
of  our  large  universities,  "are  represented  by 
research.  It  is  unfortunate  that  we  have  to  do 
any  teaching,  for  the  research  professorships 
are  not  endowed." 

While  the  capacity  for  research  is  valuable 
even  in  a  small  college,  no  one  worthy  of  the 
place  would  openly  confess  that  his  students 
were  a  nuisance  from  which  he  would  like  to  be 
delivered.  This  diflFerence  is  what  sometimes 
disappoints  the  student  upon  his  entrance  into 
a  large  institution.  A  young  man  from  a  small 
and  poorly  equipped  college  in  the  far  West  by 
dint  of  long  saving  had  secured  enough  capi- 
tal to  justify  his  migration  to  a  large  eastern 
university.     He  came  with  enthusiastic  hopes 


College  Administration  85 

and  dreams  which  he  was  sure  would  be  realized. 
But  he  happened  to  meet  a  group  of  unam- 
bitious students,  and  some  professors  whose 
lectures  seemed  to  him  to  be  purely  technical 
and  whose  attitude  was  unsympathetic,  and  at 
the  first  Christmas  vacation  he  was  met  on  the 
way  home  to  his  little  Dakota  college,  lest  all 
his  high  enthusiasms  and  ideals  should  be  de- 
stroyed. 

This  case  is  unusual,  for  there  are  all  sorts  of 
students  and  all  sorts  of  professors  in  a  large 
university,  and  no  one  need  make  a  mistake  in 
his  associates. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  the  small  college  is 
manned  by  self-sufficient,  opinionated  teachers 
who  claim  to  be  the  equal  of  the  best,  and 
deceive  their  students  by  the  idea  that  there  is 
nothing  in  the  large  associations  and  vast  oppor- 
tunities of  the  great  higher  school,  it  is  the  worst 
place  possible  for  a  youth  with  any  ambition. 

Many  small  colleges  do  excellent  work,  often- 
times the  very  best,  for  the  four  undergraduate 
years.  But  here  their  usefulness  usually  ends, 
and  in  an  attempt  to  retain  their  students  as 
graduates  they  sacrifice  them  to  their  own  mis- 
placed ambition.  It  is  generally  better  after  a 
youth  has  spent  four  years  in  the  atmosphere 


86  The  American  College 

even  of  a  good  small  college  that  he  should 
have  the  company  of  the  many  fellow  students 
in  the  same  line  of  intellectual  endeavor,  the 
inspiration  of  different  lecturers  and  scholars, 
and  the  enlarged  opportunities  in  library  and 
laboratories  which  he  will  find  in  a  great  uni- 
versity. 

To  the  well-prepared  man  or  woman  the  life 
of  a  professor  in  a  small  college  with  reasonable 
financial  resources  and  a  broad-minded  head 
ought  to  be  interesting  and  satisfying.  If  he 
have  the  spirit  of  a  teacher  and  control  of  the 
situation  his  contact  with  the  classes  should  be 
unalloyed  pleasure.  For  there  is  nothing  much 
more  satisfactory  than  to  feel  the  response  of  in- 
terested students  who  are  anxious  to  learn  and 
who  respect  attainments  and  character.  He 
has  also  a  duty  in  moulding  the  general  methods 
and  spirit  of  the  college  and  the  type  of  man- 
hood therein  developed.  He  builds  himself 
into  the  life  of  the  place  in  a  way  hardly  possi- 
ble elsewhere.  Thus  a  great  literary  character 
can  have  all  of  his  students  keen  to  copy  him 
in  his  literary  spirit  and  studies,  and  they  may 
never  lose  their  interest  in  after  life.  A  mag- 
netic personality  devoted  to  science  will  find 
eager  followers  who  will  retain  the  scientific  tem- 


College  Administration  87 

per  and  influence  of  their  master.  And  more 
than  either  the  manly  virtues  of  the  teacher  will 
be  reproduced  in  generations  of  students  who  will 
keep  sweet  and  strong  the  character  of  the  col- 
lege and  make  it  known  in  many  communities 
whither  they  may  go. 

On  the  other  side  his  associations  will  be  with 
men  of  culture  and  scholarship.  He  will  find 
some  in  different  fields  as  associates  in  the 
faculty,  he  will  meet  with  his  own  colaborers 
at  the  annual  meetings  of  literary  or  scientific 
men  of  the  learned  societies.  He  will  have  long 
vacations  free  from  care  and  responsibility  which 
he  can  spend  in  study  and  writing.  Sometimes 
he  can  add  to  his  income  by  lectures  or  written 
papers  or  books,  and  money  made  in  this  way 
will  seem  to  him  to  have  a  double  value.  If 
his  college  is  on  the  Carnegie  Foundation  list 
he  can  look  with  some  unconcern  at  his  small 
savings,  for  he  will  be  sure  of  something  for 
himself  and  wife  in  the  days  when  he  becomes 
superannuated.  When  he  was  so  unfortunate 
as  to  have  hoarded  a  little  he  probably  lost  it  in 
an  ill-judged  speculation,  and  he  finds  at  last 
that  he  is  not  a  financier,  and  if  he  ever  has  more 
to  invest  he  puts  it  into  trust  funds  which  yield 
4  per  cent,  and  cause  him  no  concern. 


88  The  American  College 

But  the  professor  has  larger  duties  than  to 
his  classes  and  himself.  He  is  one  of  the  govern- 
ing forces  of  his  college  in  dictating  its  policy 
and  methods.  As  a  member  of  the  faculty  he 
will  attend  its  meetings  and  take  his  part  in  a 
discussion  of  the  problems  which  come  before 
this  body  and  in  service  on  the  committees. 
Some  professors  are  almost  useless  in  this  sort 
of  work.  Their  judgment  is  unreliable  and 
their  executive  capacity  quite  limited  though 
they  may  succeed  in  the  classroom.  It  usu- 
ally happens  that  this  general  work,  by  a  process 
of  natural  selection,  drops  into  the  hands  of 
a  comparatively  small  number  of  men  whose 
personal  qualifications  make  them  efficient,  and 
this  efficiency  should  count  something  in  deter- 
mining their  remuneration.  In  large  and  com- 
plicated institutions  the  labors  thus  thrown 
on  a  few  men,  especially  when  the  President  is 
of  the  sort  which  demands  many  changes,  im- 
provements, or  adjustments,  is  a  serious  matter. 
It  is  a  frequent  complaint  that  certain  pro- 
fessors have  to  give  a  large  amount  of  time  to 
general  work,  yet  this  is  quite  as  much  a  part  of 
their  necessary  duties  as  carrying  a  class  through 
the  intricacies  of  a  language. 

Faculties  usually  meet  weekly,  fortnightly, 


College  Administration  89 

or  monthly  to  discuss  college  affairs.  The 
attitude  of  a  professor  should  show  a  willing- 
ness to  listen  with  open  mind  to  the  views  of 
others,  to  take  part  in  the  deliberations,  and  to 
accept  and  carry  out  the  decisions  of  the  ma- 
jority. There  was  once  an  old  professor  who  if 
the  discussion  was  not  to  his  liking  would  turn 
his  chair  toward  the  wall,  to  indicate  his  non- 
responsibility  for  the  results.  He  may  have 
been  right,  but  this  position  can  hardly  be  de- 
fended in  an  effective  governing  body. 

It  is  usually  unfortunate  to  bring  individual 
matters  of  discipline  before  faculty  meetings. 
Perfect  justice  and  consistency  of  action  will  not 
always  result.  A  disposition  to  leniency  will 
often  follow  one  of  severity,  dependent  on  the 
temper  of  the  body  or  the  effect  of  an  influ- 
ential speech.  Such  questions  need  the  bal- 
anced judgment  and  impartial  hand  of  a  skilled 
disciplinarian,  who  will  accept  the  responsibility 
and  is  willing  to  take  the  consequences. 

The  Alumni.  It  is  one  of  the  most  pleasant 
features  of  the  American  college  that  the  alumni 
retain  such  affectionate  loyalty  and  spirit  of 
cooperation  with  their  alma  mater.  They  re- 
joice in  its  success  and  aid  in  its  development. 
To  have  been  a  member  of  its  student  body  is 


9©  The  American  College 

often  sufficient  introduction  to  its  members  in  a 
strange  city.  Local  as  well  as  general  organi- 
zations are  formed  for  social  and  helpful  pur- 
poses, and  dinners  are  eaten  indefinitely  where 
toasts  to  its  prosperity  are  freely  responded  to 
and  plans  for  its  growth  are  discussed  and 
arranged.  Much  of  this  is  purely  sentimental, 
but  it  is  rather  fine  sentiment  in  many  cases. 
It  is  not  nearly  so  strong  in  the  case  of  a  second- 
ary school  or  a  professional  school.  In  the  latter 
case  there  is  something  of  the  feeling  that  as  its 
purposes  are  confessedly  mercenary,  to  prepare 
the  man  for  earning  money,  there  is  not  the 
same  room  for  sentiment  as  when  the  object  of 
the  institution  is  to  build  up  the  man  to  per- 
form all  the  duties  of  life. 

The  faculty  usually  in  the  person  of  the  Presi- 
dent is  invited  to  attend  these  gatherings,  to 
explain  the  progress  of  the  college  during  the 
preceding  year,  and  stimulate  and  direct  the 
sentiment  into  channels  profitable  to  the  college. 
The  graduates  may  be  urged  to  increase  the 
attendance  of  the  college  by  direct  effort,  to  aid 
athletics  in  reputable  ways,  or  to  subscribe  to 
any  current  effort  to  improve  its  equipment. 
Some  of  these  suggestions  are  usually  acceptable 
and  responded  to  cordially. 


College  Administration  91 

It  is,  however,  more  often  in  sentimental  or 
recreational  lines  that  alumni  aid  is  secured  than 
in  serious  discussions  regarding  the  fundamental 
policy  and  improvement  of  the  college.  The 
dinners  are  social  occasions  where  old  days  are 
relived,  old  comradeships  reviewed,  old  jokes 
revamped,  and  attempts  at  witty  speeches,  often 
successful,  indulged  in.  If  a  serious  attempt  is 
made  to  aid  the  finances,  the  argument  is  put 
forth  that  "the  college"  ought  to  provide  for 
its  own  intellectual  and  spiritual  needs  and  that 
alumni  loyalty  should  show  itself  in  furnishing 
facilities  for  games,  fraternities,  and  other  enter- 
prises which  affect  the  fringes  of  college  life. 

This  program  need  not  be  objected  to  insofar 
as  the  positive  side  is  concerned.  These  out- 
side activities  need  encouragement,  and  the 
funds  of  the  college  are  to  this  extent  relieved. 
Itoftenhappens,  however,  that  the  more  serious 
and  scholarly  members  of  the  alumni  are  not 
interested.  The  dinners  are  left  to  those  who 
enjoy  the  fellowship  and  whose  undergraduate 
career  may  not  have  been  the  most  successful. 
If  the  alumni  members  as  a  whole  are  to  become 
important  factors  in  college  management,  they 
must  as  educated  men  thoughtfully  and  im- 
partially study  its  more  profound  and  important 


92  The  American  College 

problems  as  bearing  on  the  higher  life  of  its 
students,  and  render  their  contributions  toward 
their  solution.  It  should  be  that  men  with  a 
broad  education  to  start  with  and  with  large 
experience  in  professional,  business,  or  public 
life  should  be  able  effectively  to  give  to  trustees 
and  faculty  suggestions  which  would  be  highly 
illuminating. 

Sometimes  they  have  confused  the  situation. 
In  not  a  few  colleges,  by  the  unsportsmanlike 
purchase  of  "ringers"  and  the  encouragement 
of  doubtful  methods  of  play,  with  the  watch- 
word "anything  to  win,"  certain  alumni  have 
brought  discredit  on  their  college  and  thwarted 
the  efforts  of  the  faculty  to  secure  honest  games 
and  the  exaltation  of  scholarly  ideals.  They 
do  this  on  the  plea  of  loyalty,  but  in  the  long 
run  it  is  serious  disloyalty. 

Notwithstanding  these  blemishes  the  alumni 
association  is  capable  of  much  good,  and  in  many 
cases  has  a  most  beneficefit  influence.  Whether 
it  is  wise  to  introduce  into  the  governing  boards 
any  large  elements  whose  responsibility  is  mainly 
to  the  alumni  as  now  organized  and  conducted, 
and  whose  duty  may  be  construed  by  themselves 
to  consist  in  being  agents  for  the  extra  class- 
room activities  of  the  students  may  be  doubt- 


College  Administration  93 

ful.  But  that  boards  should  seek  among  their 
alumni  many  members  to  fill  vacancies  is  not 
open  to  question. 

The  function  of  the  students  in  aiding  in  the 
management  of  the  college  by  self-governing 
associations  and  otherwise  will  be  discussed  in 
a  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   COURSES   OF   STUDY 

The  curriculum  of  the  college  is  based  on  the 
work  done  in  the  preparatory  schools.  How 
to  test  this  preparation  in  a  way  satisfactory 
to  both  school  and  college  is  one  of  the  un- 
solved problems  of  education  in  the  United 
States. 

Prior  to  the  Civil  War,  when  the  conditions 
of  admission  to  college  embraced  certain  Greek 
and  Latin  authors  and  some  arithmetic,  and 
not  much  else,  it  was  a  comparatively  simple 
matter.  The  instruction  was  in  the  hands  of 
private  tutors  and  academies  whose  obHgations 
to  fulfil  the  function  were  so  fully  acknowledged 
that  no  confusion  resulted.  They  prepared  for 
a  set  of  examinations,  nearly  the  same  for  all 
colleges,  and  had  no  distracting  duties.  Two 
elements  combined  to  change  these  conditions: 
One  was  the  great  increase  in  the  subjects  of 
study  which  were  variously  selected  by  differ- 
ent colleges  and  consequently  required  special 

94 


The  Courses  of  Study  95 

classes  in  any  school  which  prepared  for  more 
than  one  college.  The  other  was  the  growth 
of  the  public  high  school,  which  had  to  meet  the 
circumstances  of  its  patrons  and  would  not  be 
satisfied  simply  with  the  college  demands.  In 
time  the  first  of  these  elements  became  so 
serious  even  in  schools  that  made  college  prep- 
aration their  principal  or  exclusive  task  that 
relief  had  to  be  sought.  The  variations  were 
slight,  but  the  colleges  each  insistently  de- 
manded its  own  authors  and  sometimes  text- 
books, and  separate  classes  had  to  be  formed 
in  the  upper  school  years  for  each. 

This  has  been  largely  remedied  by  coopera- 
tion among  the  colleges.  The  requirements 
for  admission  in  English  are  now  by  joint  action 
made  the  same  for  all  high-grade  colleges,  and 
the  schools  can  keep  their  classes  intact  in  this 
subject.  Nor  are  the  variations,  while  still  some- 
what perplexing,  nearly  so  great  as  formerly  in 
other  subjects.  Moreover,  by  a  system  of  elec- 
tives,  it  is  possible  to  satisfy  varying  demands. 
Thus  it  is  usually  possible  to  choose  one  of  the 
several  sciences,  and  while  the  list  is  not  the 
same  in  all  colleges,  the  same  science  can  usually 
be  found  on  several  lists  and  taught  to  the 
whole  class.    The  colleges  owe  to  the  schools  to 


gS  The  American  College 

remove  whatever  just  causes  of  complaint  still 
exist,  and  unify  their  requirements. 

The  high  school  problem  is  more  difficult 
of  solution.  The  college  complains  that  the 
education  here  is  superficial,  covering  many 
subjects  lightly,  and  not  adapted  as  a  basis 
for  serious  after  study.  They  generally  also 
insist  on  more  language  attainments  than  many 
schools  wish  to  give,  and  refuse  to  accept  sub- 
jects like  bookkeeping,  manual  training,  and 
domestic  science  as  satisfactory  for  their  pur- 
poses. These  are,  however,  loudly  called  for 
by  the  patrons  of  the  public  school,  and  with 
increasing  emphasis  as  time  goes  on,  and  the 
demand  is  becoming  insistent  that  they  shall  be 
admitted  to  some  extent  as  making  up  the 
necessary  units  required  for  admission  to  college. 
Many  youths  do  not  decide  to  enter  college  un- 
til some  time  during  the  secondary  school  course, 
and  their  plans  are  delayed  by  the  omission  of 
languages  and  the  substitution  of  other  subjects 
which  are  not  on  the  college  lists.  The  request 
in  its  baldest  form  amounts  to  this:  that  any 
subject  seriously  taken  in  school  should  be  ac- 
cepted at  its  proper  valuation  by  the  college,  and 
that  simple  graduation  from  a  good  high  school 
should  be  the  only  prerequisite  for  entrance. 


The  Courses  of  Study  97 

To  this  the  colleges  reply  that  many  of  these 
subjects,  useful  though  they  are  and  perfectly 
proper  in  their  place,  have  no  relation  to  college 
subjects,  do  not  prepare  for  them,  and  hence 
cannot  be  continued.  This  is  claimed  not  only 
as  to  content,  but  also  as  to  the  sort  of  discipline 
needed  to  fit  the  college  student  for  his  work. 
Especially  they  say  that  foreign  languages, 
which  are  essential  to  higher  education,  cannot 
be  so  satisfactorily  mastered  in  mature  life  and 
should  at  least  have  their  elements  obtained 
during  school  days.  The  knowledge  of  these 
languages  is  not  only  practically  useful,  but  gives 
a  mastery  of  words  and  ideas  essential  to  the 
scholar,  and  students  of  college  age  have  neither 
the  time  nor  the  facile  mind  to  begin  them. 

The  difference  will  probably  be  settled  by 
having  two  sorts  of  college  or  of  courses  within 
the  large  colleges.  One  sort  will  adhere  to  the 
old  idea  of  education  of  a  general  and  cultural 
sort,  the  other  will  accept  the  products  of  the 
vocational  work  of  the  schools  and  add  to  it. 
Evidently  there  is  need  for  both  in  our  system, 
but  it  should  not  be  expected  that  all  institu- 
tions of  higher  learning  should  strive  to  satisfy 
both  sets  of  demands. 

The  minimum    amount   of  knowledge  pre- 


98  The  American  College 

scribed  by  the  Carnegie  Foundation  for  the 
colleges  which  it  places  on  its  accepted  list  is 
fourteen  and  one  half  units,  and  a  unit  is  de- 
fined as  **A  year's  study  of  any  subject  in  a 
secondary  school  constituting  approximately  a 
quarter  of  a  full  year's  work."  It  is  assumed 
that  there  will  be  daily  recitations  four  or  five 
times  a  week  for  from  thirty-six  to  forty  weeks. 

The  four  years  of  high  school  work  might 
therefore  cover  sixteen  units,  but  one  or  one  and 
a  half  are  allowed  for  necessary  reviews  and 
examinations.  This  definition  and  the  result- 
ing practice  have  been  adopted  by  many  of 
the  educational  associations  of  the  country  and 
by  nearly  all  the  better  colleges,  and  may  be 
said  to  express  the  standard  of  development  of 
the  college  beginner. 

The  tendency  among  the  colleges  is  to  allow 
more  latitude  for  the  schools  in  the  subjects 
required  for  admission.  In  Stanford  Univer- 
sity and  Clark  and  Reed  Colleges  nothing  is 
stated,  but  candidates  are  given  full  freedom. 
Many  others  allow  freedom  for  a  fraction  of 
the  list.  Still  more  after  requiring  certain  stud- 
ies present  a  list  of  electives  from  which  se- 
lections may  be  made.  English,  mathematics, 
a  foreign  language,  and  something  in  history  or 


The  Courses  of  Study  99 

science  are  most  often  prescribed.  The  High 
School  Association  has  asked  that  only  two 
units  of  modern  languages  be  insisted  on,  but 
most  good  colleges  now  demand  from  three  to 
six.  The  association  has  also  asked  that  in 
special  cases  no  foreign  language  or  no  mathe- 
matics be  required,  but  this  has  been  conceded 
by  very  few  colleges. 

Even  in  the  colleges  which  are  the  most  rigid, 
however,  there  is  an  increasing  tendency  to 
weigh  the  general  preparation  of  the  student  as 
indicated  by  principals'  reports  and  general  im- 
pressions rather  than  to  insist  on  every  detail  of 
the  announced  subjects. 

Various  methods  are  in  use  to  test  the  pro- 
ficiency of  candidates  who  wish  to  enter  college. 

One  is  by  accepting  school  certificates  and 
relying  on  the  statements  of  principals  as  to  the 
quality  of  the  preparation.  This  would  seem  to 
be  the  natural  way.  Education  should  go  on 
naturally  from  one  grade  to  another,  as  it  does 
in  Germany,  and  the  school  tests  at  the  end  of 
the  course  should  be  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  col- 
lege. In  Germany,  where  there  is  a  rigid  organ- 
ization, all  those  who  finish  the  course  in  the 
secondary  schools  have  a  nearly  similar  prepara- 
tion, and  the  state  supervises  the  whole  system. 


lOO  The  American  College 

In  America  there  are  state  systems  of  varying 
efficiency,  private  and  denominational  schools 
held  to  no  responsibility,  and  in  most  states  no 
efficient  examinations  of  the  schools  to  test  their 
ability  to  do  the  work  they  profess  to  do.  Hence 
the  indiscriminate  acceptance  of  certificates 
from  all  sorts  of  schools  is  sure  to  launch  upon 
college  work  a  host  of  unprepared  freshmen. 
So  anxious,  too,  are  many  colleges  to  increase 
their  numbers  that  they  encourage,  rather  than 
otherwise,  the  reception  of  such  students,  and  if 
too  weak  to  do  the  work  they  are  called  special 
or  partial  or  conditioned  students.  This  re- 
duces the  value  of  the  college  teaching  to  those 
well  prepared  and  necessitates  doing  elementary 
or  otherwise  inferior  work. 

To  do  away  with  these  disadvantages  the  most 
of  the  states  with  state  universities  make  a 
periodic  investigation  of  the  high  schools,  and 
accept  certificates  only  from  the  fit  ones.  Many 
New  England  colleges  make  up  from  the  college 
records  a  list  of  schools  from  which  satisfactory 
candidates  have  been  received,  which  list  is 
revised  from  year  to  year,  and  refuse  certificates 
from  others.  A  similar  movement  is  in  con- 
templation in  the  Middle  States.  Some  colleges 
which  would  not  claim   allegiance  to  any  of 


The  Coursies  of  Stu«iy       \.  ,.  >  JQJ. 

these  groups  profess  to  make  their  own  inquiries 
and  form  a  list  of  accredited  schools.  But  with 
all  these  safeguards  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
certificate  system  is  greatly  abused  in  many 
places,  and  is  prized  as  a  means  of  increasing 
numbers  rather  than  selecting  proper  material. 
The  fault  lies  mainly  with  the  colleges  for  this 
perversion  of  a  theoretically  reasonable  plan. 

Both  school  and  college  suffer.  The  school, 
because  one  great  stimulus  to  hard  work  is  re- 
moved when  every  weakling  is  readily  promoted ; 
the  college,  because  the  classes  have  such  large 
groups  of  poor  students  that  the  instruction  has 
to  be  modified  to  meet  their  needs.  Another  year 
of  preparation  would  be  better  for  both,  but  this 
would  risk  the  loss  of  numbers  to  some  colleges 
and  a  competitor  might  reap  the  benefit,  and  so 
the  colleges  in  this  as  in  other  ways  underbid 
each  other.* 

Varying  certificates  are  demanded  by  dif- 
ferent colleges,  and  this  is  a  matter  which  needs 

*"It  is  still  true  that  the  majority  of  institutions  of  the  United 
States  bearing  the  name  of  university  or  college  take  every  student 
that  they  can  get,  quite  regardless  of  their  academic  qualifica- 
tions."— Dr.  Pritchett   in   Carnegie   Foundation    Report,  1913. 

"A  principal  declined  to  certify  a  boy  in  a  single  subject,  but 
added  that  he  was  *a  good  boy'  and  had  spent  four  years  in  the 
school.  The  boy  was  accepted  by  the  college  without  examina- 
tion and  the  college  was  accepted  by  the  Carnegie  Foundation." — 
W.  T.  Foster,  "Administration  of  the  College  Curriculum,"  p.  315. 


i^^  lf>  v'^l :    The  Aoierican  College 

unifying.  But  they  generally  require  the  grades 
in  each  subject,  the  amount  of  time  given  to 
recitations  in  each,  and  an  estimate  of  the  can- 
didate's worth  intellectually  and  morally.  Some- 
times only  a  diploma  of  the  school  is  asked  for. 
The  other  method  of  admission  is  by  exami- 
nations conducted  by  the  college.  This  is 
applied  to  such  students  as  cannot  bring  the 
proper  certificates,  and  by  a  few  colleges  to  all 
applicants.  So  far  as  known  the  only  colleges 
requiring  collegiate  entrance  examinations  of  all 
candidates  are  Harvard,  Yale,  Columbia,  Prince- 
ton, Bryn  Mawr,  and  Haverford,  and  two  or 
three  technical  schools.  This  method  is  well 
organized  by  the  College  Entrance  Examination 
Board  which  has  its  headquarters  in  New  York. 
The  questions  are  prepared  by  committees  in 
the  various  subjects,  composed  of  teachers, 
some  from  the  colleges  and  some  from  the  sec- 
ondary schools.  The  answers  are  inspected  by 
several  examiners  and  are  marked  according 
to  merit.  The  results  are  given  to  the  candidate 
and  also  to  the  college  which  he  aspires  to  enter. 
The  college  can  then  make  its  own  standard  of 
admission  and  reject  as  it  thinks  proper.  Practi- 
cally all  colleges  will  accept  the  results  in  lieu  of 
their  own  systems  of  admission.  Each  candidate 


The  Courses  of  Study  103 

must  pay  $5,  which  covers  the  expense.  In 
191 3  there  were  4,159  persons  examined  and 
examinations  were  held  in  170  places  scattered 
over  the  United  States  and  25  in  foreign  coun- 
tries. Three  fourths  of  the  whole  number  of 
candidates  came  from  the  New  England  and  the 
Middle  States.  The  questions  being  checked  by 
several  specialists  on  each  subject  are  supposed 
to  be  free  from  the  peculiar  ideas  of  certain 
teachers,  and  to  contain  only  such  matter  as 
every  boy  or  girl  who  had  satisfactorily  studied 
the  subject  should  be  expected  to  know. 

There  are  several  weaknesses  of  the  exami- 
nation system  by  individual  colleges  frequently 
urged.  An  examiner  has  distorted  or  peculiar 
ideas  of  the  relative  importance  of  special  parts 
of  his  subject,  and  these  peculiarities  are  re- 
flected in  his  papers.  Or  if  made  by  different 
teachers  they  vary  from  year  to  year  in  diffi- 
culty. Or  an  account  of  special  nervousness  or 
temporary  ill  health  of  some  applicants  they  do 
not  constitute  a  fair  test  of  actual  knowledge 
and  mental  power.  Certain  experiments  cover- 
ing a  number  of  years  seem  to  indicate  that  there 
is  not  much  force  in  these  objections,  but  that 
the  relative  standing  of  boys  at  entrance  in  a 
college  which  gives  proper  consideration  to  the 


I04  The  American  College 

preparation  of  its  papers  agrees  very  closely  with 
their  relative  standing  at  the  end  of  their  fresh- 
men year.  With  girls  there  is  probably  more  vari- 
ation, due  to  excessive  nervousness  in  some  cases. 

But  by  whatever  system  the  tests  are  applied, 
it  is  within  the  province  of  the  college  to  accept 
unprepared  students,  and  many  of  them  do  it. 
In  many  recent  years  the  students  conditioned 
on  one  or  more  subjects  in  Harvard,  Yale,  and 
Columbia  have  constituted  one  half  or  more  of 
all  the  freshmen.  These  conditioned  men  are 
expected  to  carry  on  their  regular  work,  and,  as 
best  they  may,  also  bring  up  their  deficiencies. 
That  is,  the  students  least  well-prepared  are 
given  extra  duties  to  perform.  The  result  in 
many  cases  is  slovenly  work. 

The  fact  is  that  there  are  many  indications 
that  our  school  system  in  general  has  been  con- 
tent to  cover  much  ground  without  the  reason- 
able thoroughness  which  a  really  good  education 
would  demand.  If  one  would  judge  from  the 
results  in  one  college  or  university,  the  cause 
might  be  assumed  to  be  local  or  perhaps  tem- 
porary. But  all  over  the  country  and  for  many 
years  the  same  story  is  told,  and  it  applies  to 
primary,  secondary,  and  collegiate  education. 

At  West  Point  and  Annapolis  boys  come  up 


The  Courses  of  Study  105 

for  admission  from  every  congressional  district 
in  the  United  States,  and  are  examined  on  ele- 
mentary subjects.  Colonel  Larned,  in  the  North 
American  Review  for  September,  1908,  tells  the 
story:  "The  examinations  are  written  and 
abundant  time  is  given  for  their  completion, 
even  for  those  of  inferior  capacity  and  prepa- 
ration. Out  of  314  candidates  who  attempted 
the  entrance  papers  in  March,  1908,  265  failed: 
56  in  one  subject,  209  in  two  or  more  subjects. 
The  average  attendance  at  high  schools  was 
three  years  and  eight  months.  One  hundred  and 
thirty-five  had  college  education  of  one  year  or 
more."  Of  219  examined  at  Annapolis  in  191 3, 
46  passed. 

Reports  of  another  test  now  come  to  us  from 
England,  which  tells  the  same  story  of  lack  of 
thoroughness  and  capacity  for  the  hard  work  on 
uninteresting  subjects  needed  for  the  higher 
triumphs  of  scholarship. 

Every  year  two  students  from  each  state  may 
be  at  Oxford  University  as  Rhodes  scholars. 
They  are  selected  by  something  of  a  competitive 
test,  and  if  not  the  best  are  usually  among  the 
better  scholars  of  the  colleges.  Most  of  them 
are  graduates.  The  Oxford  tutors  in  large  num- 
bers have  given  testimony  as  to  the  quality  of 


lo6  The  American  College 

the  education  received  by  the  Afilericans  in  com- 
parison with  that  of  their  comrades  from  Eng- 
land and  elsewhere. 

While  they  do  not  all  agree,  a  few  quotations 
will  show  the  trend  of  many  of  them : 

"A  has  done  well  in  athletics  and  is  a  dis- 
tinctly popular  man  in  college.  Reports  about 
his  work  are  fairly  satisfactory.  But  he  is  like 
most  of  these  Americans,  rather  a  dilettante, 
and  does  not  care  very  much  for  the  grind." 

**Our  American  scholars  seem  inclined  to 
drift  from  one  subject  to  another,  taking  a  bird's- 
eye  view  of  each  and  resting  content  with  that." 

**E  is  an  intelligent  man  and  had  no  difficulty 
with  the  ordinary  examinations;  but  his  knowl- 
edge was  vague  and  he  had  great  difficulty  in 
expressing  himself  fully  or  clearly  or  precisely. 
That  is  the  general  impression  I  have  gathered 
about  the  American  scholars — that  they  have  a 
general  knowledge,  but  have  been  taught  noth- 
ing very  precisely." 

"I  think  that  their  training  in  America  has 
encouraged  smattering  in  a  large  number  of  sub- 
jects." 

"They  at  first  find  the  Oxford  system  diffi- 
cult, for  the  double  reason  that  they  are  ex- 
pected to  get  up  a  subject  thoroughly,  and  are 


The  Courses  of  Study  107 

tested  by  an  examination  much  longer  and  more 
severe  than  that  which  they  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  and  on  an  extensive  rangeof  worksome 
of  which  has  necessarily  been  done  a  considerable 
time  before  the  examination  takes  place.'*  / 

Making  due  allowance  for  any  English  preju- 
dices which   may  exist,   these   men   put  their , 
finger  on  a  weak  spot  in  our  schools  and  colleges 
alike — the  tendency  to  superficial  interest  in  a\ 
variety  of  subjects  and  to  avoid  the  thorough 
work  and  hard  grind  necessary  to  know  essen- 
tials well,  from  the  multiplication  table  to  the    , 
grammar  of  a  language  or  the  severe  analysis  of 
a  science.     They  lose  not  only  a  solid  basis  of 
knowledge  upon  which  to  build,  but  they  lose 
also  the  ability  to  concentrate  for  days  together 
upon  the  heavy  details  of  any  study,  and  so 
become  in  the  best  sense  scholars. 

It  is  with  this  material  undrilled  that  the 
college  professor  finds  himself  confronted  when 
he  first  meets  his  freshman  class.  Especially 
in  the  effective  use  of  the  mother  tongue  in 
speaking  and  writing  is  there  gross  deficiency, 
and  when  a  youth  grows  up  in  an  illiterate 
family  and  the  school  instruction  is  not  very 
good,  all  the  college  efforts  to  secure  a  respect- 
able, not  to  say  elegant,  English  style  are  often 


io8  The  American  College 

unsuccessful.  English,  therefore,  constitutes  a 
considerable  part  of  the  requirements  of  a 
college  course.  It  is  often  a  required  subject  in 
some  form  through  all  four  years,  nearly  always 
through  one  or  two.  Some  colleges  which  accept 
certificates  in  other  subjects  demand  examina- 
tions in  English,  thinking  thus  to  bring  more 
pressure  on  the  schools  for  thorough  work. 
Much  of  this  weakness  is  due  to  the  peculiar 
opportunities  which  America  offers  to  any 
boy,  however  lowly  in  birth  or  fortune,  to  find 
his  way  into  a  higher  institution  of  learning. 

The  old  system  of  Greek,  Latin,  and  mathe- 
matics, with  a  sprinkling  of  science,  philosophy, 
and  literature,  made  the  problem  of  the  college 
curriculum  very  simple.  But  few  teachers  were 
needed.  With  the  method  of  hearing  recita- 
tions to  test  the  fidelity  of  the  study  of  a  text- 
book a  professor  could  work  many  hours  a  week. 
No  expensive  laboratories  were  required.  A 
modest  library  sufficed.  Classrooms  were  bar- 
ren of  superfluous  furniture  or  decoration.  The 
main  machinery  was  a  man,  a  book,  and  a  boy, 
with  enough  of  a  house  to  keep  out  the  storms. 

But  the  enlarging  field  of  knowledge  could 
not  be  satisfied  with  these  simple  conditions. 
Laboratory  science   demanded   great  expendi- 


The  Courses  of  Study  109 

tures.  Specialists  who  could  keep  up  with 
rapidly  developing  subjects  could  not  teach  all 
day  and  in  a  great  variety  of  fields.  Settees 
gave  place  to  chairs,  and  the  honor  of  a  pro- 
fessorship and  the  sense  of  duty  performed  were 
no  longer  sufficient  compensation  for  scholar- 
ship gained  with  much  expenditure  of  time  and 
effort.  The  text-book  and  a  few  cyclopedias 
and  dictionaries  no  longer  sufficed  to  meet  the 
demands  of  inquiring  students  and  exacting 
teachers.  The  lecture  system  needed  many 
authorities  to  supplement  the  notes  taken  by 
the  hearers,  and  with  the  development  in  the 
community  of  the  artistic  sense  the  plain  build- 
ings and  bare  equipment  of  earlier  times  gave 
place  to  more  elaboration  and  adornment. 

But  the  most  striking  change  was  in  the  cur- 
riculum. Every  student  could  not  study  every- 
thing which  clamored  to  be  admitted  into  the 
college  course.  All  were  not  benefited  by  the 
same  subjects,  nor  did  their  work  in  life  seem  to 
be  advanced  by  the  same  regimen.  Some  adap- 
tation was  necessary  to  satisfy  the  individual 
requirements,  real  or  supposed. 

Harvard  was  probably  predisposed  toward 
the  free  elective  system  by  the  pioneer  work  of 
George  Ticknor  and  others  early  in  the  nine- 


no  The  American  College 

teenth  century.  But  reactionary  movements 
were  also  active,  and  it  was  not  till  the  advent 
of  President  EHot,  in  1869,  that  real  progress  in 
this  line  was  made.  His  inaugural  address 
strongly  recommended  it.  "The  college  pro- 
poses to  persevere  in  its  efforts  to  establish,  im- 
prove, and  extend  the  elective  system."  This 
pledge  was  so  fully  carried  out  that  in  a  few 
years  any  student  any  year  could  select  from  an 
extensive  list  any  subject  he  preferred,  limited 
only  by  the  conflicting  positions  of  subjects  on 
the  daily  program. 

But  Yale  was  conservative.  She  could  not 
keep  the  new  subjects  out  of  the  catalogue,  but 
she  insisted  on  a  large  proportion  of  the  tried 
trio  of  Greek,  Latin,  and  mathematics  in  the 
earlier  years,  with  a  limited  choice  later.  The 
smaller  colleges,  dependent  on  whether  radi- 
calism of  the  Harvard  type  or  conservatism  as 
voiced  by  Yale  was  in  the  ascendant,  became 
divided  along  the  lines  of  elective  or  partially 
non-elective  courses.  The  most  of  them,  partly 
from  the  trained  conservatism  of  the  faculties, 
were  in  accord  with  the  Yale  leadership. 

In  the  discussion  which  followed,  it  was  said 
against  student  election  that  it  produced  a 
desultory  choice,  from  which  no  real  education 


The  Courses  of  Study  iii 

was  obtained,  and  no  available  knowledge  of 
any  topic  was  secured;  that  the  ease  of  exami- 
nation, or  the  time  of  day  assigned  for  the  class 
to  meet,  or  other  equally  unworthy  motives, 
determined  the  selection  in  the  case  of  many 
aspirants  for  comfortable  lives.  For  it,  it  was 
claimed  that  it  gave  the  opportunity  for  each 
student  to  have  the  work  best  fitted  for  his 
temperament  or  peculiar  needs  in  after  life: 
that  the  classes  composed  of  those  specially 
drawn  to  the  subject  were  far  more  effective  and 
inspiring;  and  that  the  necessity  to  make  a 
study  attractive  and  useful,  in  order  to  obtain 
a  good  list  of  the  better  students,  put  the  profes- 
sor on  his  metal  and  weeded  out  the  dry  and  in- 
competent men  from  the  faculty. 

These  arguments  on  both  sides  had  a  large 
share  of  truth.  To  obviate  the  difficulties  and 
retain  the  advantages  the  "group  system"  was 
designed.  The  most  effective  early  advocate 
of  this  system  was  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
The  theory  of  it  was  that  work  should  be  con- 
centrated along  certain  lines  leading  to  definite 
ends.  The  election  should  be  of  courses  rather 
than  single  studies.  The  curriculum  was  di- 
vided into  courses  in  classics,  in  literature,  in 
history,  and  economics,  in  preparatory  medical 


112  The  American  College 

studies,  and  so  on.  Once  a  course  was  chosen, 
there  was  an  obligation  to  continue  it  through 
the  years,  though  some  time  was  allowed  for 
free  electives  outside  the  course.  The  following 
representative  group  system  is  taken  from  the 
catalogue  of  Bryn  Mawr  College: 

REQUIRED   STUDIES 

Greek  or  French  or  German,  five  hours  a  week  for 
one  year,  when  this  subject  has  not  been  included 
in  the  examination  for  matriculation.  Those  stu- 
dents, however,  who  wish  to  omit  Greek  may  sub- 
stitute for  the  required  course  in  Greek  the  minor 
course  in  Latin. 

English,  five  hours  a  week  for  two  years. 

Philosophy  and  Psychology,  five  hours  a  week  for 
one  year. 

Science,  five  hours  a  week  for  one  year. 

Science,  or  History,  or  Economics  and  Politics,  or 
Philosophy,  or  Psychology,  or  Mathematics,  five  hours 
a  week  for  one  year. 

Two  Major  Courses,  of  five  hours  a  week  for  two 
years  each,  constituting  one  of  the  following  Groups: 
any  Language  with  any  Language;  Latin  or  Greek 
with  Ancient  History;  Comparative  Literature  with 
English,  or  German,  or  Italian,  or  Spanish;  Ancient 
History  with  Classical  Archaeology;  History  with 
Economics  and  Politics;  Modern  History  with 
German,  or  French,  or  History  of  Art;  Philosophy 
or  Psychology,  or  Philosophy  and  Psychology  with 
Greek,  or  English,  or  Economics  and  Politics,  or 


The  Courses  of  Study  113 

Mathematics,  or  Physics;  Philosophy  with  Latin 
or  Psychology;  Psychology  with  Biology;  Classical 
Archaeology  with  Greek,  or  Latin;  History  of  Art 
with  French,  or  German,  or  Italian,  or  Spanish; 
Mathematics  with  Greek,  or  Latin,  or  Physics,  or 
Chemistry,  or  Geology,  or  Biology;  any  Science 
with  any  Science. 

Free  Elective  CourseSy  amounting  to  ten  hours  a 
week  for  one  year,  to  be  chosen  by  the  student. 
It  should  be  noted  that  a  single  study  may  be  taken 
as  a  free  elective,  without  electing  the  group  that 
includes  it,  and  any  courses  open  as  free  electives 
may  be  chosen  without  taking  the  remainder  of  the 
minor  course  of  which  they  may  form  a  part. 

Against  the  group  system  it  is  urged  that  in 
many  cases  it  is  too  inelastic:  that  there  maybe 
certain  students  who  are  compelled  by  the  con- 
ditions to  load  themselves  with  subjects,  and 
omit  others,  which  militate  against  well-consid- 
ered and  reasonable  choices.  It  is  not  always 
found  satisfactory  in  meeting  such  demands. 

But  there  seems  to  be  developing  out  of  the 
chaos  of  existing  curricula  certain  general  prin- 
ciples. The  main  one  is  that  a  college  course 
of  study  should  have  some  central  feature  or 
features  carried  on  for  three  or  four  years, 
which  should  leave  the  student  fairly  well  in- 
formed and  interested  in  some  line  of  work; 


114  The  American  College 

and  subsidiary  to  this  that  other  more  or  less 
related  studies  in  varied  departments  should 
broaden  his  view  of  the  intellectual  field  in 
general.  "Everything  about  something,  and 
something  about  everything,"  is  an  exaggerated 
expression  of  the  idea.  Harvard  has  recently 
modified  its  elective  system  to  require  both  con- 
centration and  distribution  in  this  sense,  to  avoid 
narrow  specialists  on  the  one  hand  and  discur- 
sive superficiaHsts  on  the  other. 

Probably  more  colleges  have  adopted  a  plan 
perhaps  not  very  logical  but  which  seems  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  the  situation.  A  large 
part  of  the  freshmen  year  is  compulsory  and 
consists  of  English,  two  foreign  languages,  and 
mathematics,  with  probably  a  choice  within  a 
small  group  of  other  studies.  As  the  student 
advances  he  finds  less  requirement  and  more 
of  election  until  the  senior  year,  in  which  the 
field  of  election  is  almost  entirely  unrestricted. 
But  It  is  required  that  in  making  his  election 
one  or  more  subjects  shall  be  required  through 
two  or  three  upper  years  of  the  course.  While 
this  is  neither  the  group  system  nor  the  system 
of  free  electives,  it  seems  to  combine  certain 
good  features  of  both  and  to  adapt  itself  to 
varying  needs  without  the  sacrifice  of  consist- 


The  Courses  of  Study 


115 


ency.    The  Haverford  curriculum  may  be  used 
as  illustrative: 


HOURS 
PER  WEEK 


Freshman  Year 

English 3 

fLatin      ^ 

3  Greek      (  8 

j  French    ( 

v-German  J 
Mathematics 

rChemistry 

O-f-         Efcing 

v.Government  and  History 
Physical  Training    2 


Two  from 


I 


4 

3  or  4 


Sophomore  Year 

English 2 

History  and  Economics  3 

One  of  the  languages  taken  in  Freshman  year  . .       4 

Greek 

Latin 

French 

German 
Two  from      J  Biology  L 8 

Physics 

Chemistry 

Mathematics 

Engineering 

Biblical  Literature 
Physical  Training    2 

Junior  Year 

Psychology  and  Biblical  Literature 3 

Elective  courses 12 

Senior  Year 

Ethics  and  Sociology   3 

Elective  courses 12 

It  is  required  that  for  the  A.  B.  degree  Latin  or  Greek  shall 
be  studied  for  two  years  after  entrance,  that  one  three-year 
sequence  and  two  two-year  sequences  shall  be  taken  after  the 
freshman  year,  and  that  certain  other  limitations  to  free  choice 
shall  be  observed. 


ii6  The  American  College 

It  is  largely  conceded  that  the  boy  just  from 
school  is  often  unable  to  choose  wisely.  The 
results  are  haphazard.  It  is  also  probably  true 
that  the  years  of  his  secondary  school  life  are 
not  sufficient  to  give  him  that  broad  train- 
ing on  which  specialization  may  be  profitably 
based.  After  he  has  found  his  bearings  and  his 
bias,  has  learned  something  of  the  professors 
with  whom  he  is  to  work,  and  the  subjects 
which  will  interest  him,  and  is  more  near  to  a 
determination  of  the  work  of  his  after  life,  he 
may  well  exercise  his  own  judgment,  if  he  is 
earnest  and  ambitious,  in  his  choice  of  courses. 
Hence  the  early  requirements  and  the  later  lib- 
erty. 

It  is  a  great  pleasure  and  profit  to  both 
teacher  and  student  to  have  no  one  in  the  class 
but  such  as  have  chosen  the  subject  as  the 
result  of  interest  in  it.  If  all  students  could 
wisely  select  and  were  governed  by  reasonably 
good  motives,  such  as  the  character  of  the  sub- 
ject or  the  professor,  their  own  interests  and 
qualifications,  and  preparation  for  serious  duties 
in  after  life,  the  free  elective  system  would  be 
admirable.  But  some  in  every  college  have 
lower  motives  and  some  have  not  the  experi- 
ence or  wisdom   necessary  to  attain  the  ends 


The  Courses  of  Study  117 

for  which  they  strive.  Hence  some  limitations 
or  advice  is  desirable,  and  many  colleges  have 
advisers  in  the  faculty  to  whom  the  schedule 
must  be  submitted  before  it  becomes  valid. 
These  advisers  are  also  expected  to  keep  in  touch 
with  the  student's  progress  and  lend  him  such 
general  encouragement  and  instruction  as  may 
be  best  for  him. 

This  has  been  elaborated  more  fully  than 
elsewhere  in  the  "Preceptorial  System"  of 
Princeton  College. 

The  preceptors  are  a  body  of  scholarly  men 
who  meet  the  students  in  little  groups  to  give 
advice  and  test  the  faithfulness  and  accuracy 
of  their  work.  They  assist  more  especially  in 
the  "Reading  departments,  history  and  poli- 
tics, art  and  archaeology,  and  the  languages." 
Lectures  are  given  in  these  subjects  by  the 
professor,  but  the  main  work  is  a  course  of  read- 
ing prescribed  by  him.  The  preceptor  must 
see  that  this  is  done.  The  student  reports  to 
him  one  or  more  times  a  week.  These  con- 
ferences are  composed  of  from  three  to  six  men, 
who  meet  informally.  The  preceptor  ascertains 
how  intelligently  the  reading  of  the  student  has 
been  done,  and  the  student  asks  the  questions 
which  have  been  suggested  by  his  studies.     In 


Ii8  The  American  College 

this  free  conference  a  better  understanding 
results  with  both  parties.  Unless  the  preceptor 
certifies  to  the  character  of  the  student's  work 
he  is  not  permitted  to  enter  the  examination. 
The  main  purpose  of  the  system  is  to  substi- 
tute for  the  tasklike  recitation  and  examination 
system  one  which  will  draw  out  the  spontane- 
ous and  continued  interest  of  the  student,  and 
insure  his  intelligent  comprehension  of  the  topic 
which  he  professes  to  consider.  Bowdoin  College 
in  Maine  has  adopted  a  similar  system.  Its 
President  describes  the  result.  It  has  been  in- 
troduced in  the  teaching  of  "ancient,  modern 
European,  and  American  history;  European 
and  American  government,  and  English  litera- 
ture. In  these  courses  the  class  is  divided  for 
the  third  hour,  not  into  quiz  sections  of  twenty  or 
twenty-five,  but  into  conference  sections  of  five 
or  six.  A  quiz  section  is  merely  a  small  class, 
and  its  aim  is  to  show  the  instructor  what  the 
student  does  and  does  not  know.  A  conference 
is  a  group  of  individuals:  its  aim  is  to  show  the 
students  how  the  instructor  thinks  and  feels 
about  those  aspects  of  the  subject  in  which  the 
individual  student  can  be  induced  to  take  a 
personal  interest.  It  costs  double  in  money, 
time,   and   labor;  but   bears  fruit  fourfold   in 


The  Courses  of  Study  119 

vitality,  responsibility,  and  scholarly  ambi- 
tion." 

In  the  large  colleges  the  subjects  most  chosen 
by  the  students  are  English,  history,  economics, 
modern  languages,  and  philosophy.  In  the 
smaller  ones,  due  probably  to  the  influences  of 
the  stronger  professors,  a  larger  proportion  of 
classics  and  mathematics  is  elected.  There  is  a 
wider  field  of  choice  open  in  the  former  case, 
and  more  required  work  in  the  latter.  The 
reading  subjects  which  are  most  popular  may  be 
of  highest  value  if  pursued  with  an  earnest 
desire  to  probe  the  matters  to  the  bottom. 
But  they  are  also  susceptible  of  very  super- 
ficial work.  A  class  may  be  lectured  to,  may 
cursorily  read  many  authorities,  and  may  pass 
an  examination  by  the  aid  of  general  intelli- 
gence and  some  imagination  without  having 
received  much  but  information  from  the  proc- 
ess. The  students  may  not  have  learned  to 
think  or  reason  accurately  or  to  do  hard  work, 
except  for  a  little  time  just  before  the  exami- 
nations, or  to  have  secured  any  real  training 
or  power.  Yet  their  deficiencies  may  not  be 
sufficiently  serious  to  justify  a  failure  to  be 
passed. 

The  mathematical  and  linguistic  training  is 


120  The  American  College 

more  definite.  A  problem  in  calculus  is  either 
solved  or  not  solved,  a  translation  of  Tacitus  is 
right  or  it  is  wrong,  or  if  there  is  a  mixture  of 
the  two  the  proportion  of  right  or  wrong  is 
pretty  easily  determined.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
bluflF  on  the  part  of  the  student  or  of  difficult 
judgment  on  the  part  of  the  professor.  It 
cannot  be  gotten  except  by  labor,  often  long- 
continued  and  severe  labor.  The  successful 
man  must  reason  and  think,  otherwise  he  cheats 
or  fails. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  the  subjects 
are  chosen  by  most  college  students  because  they 
are  capable  of  being  handled  without  serious 
eflFort.  Most  students  are  earnestly  desirous 
to  secure  from  college  life  the  greatest  possible 
benefit  for  their  future  duties.  The  connection 
between  English  and  success  in  life  is  much 
more  direct  and  obvious  than  with  astronomy 
or  Plato  substituted  for  it.  The  problems  sug- 
gested by  history  and  government  or  econom- 
ics have  much  closer  relation  to  the  interests 
of  the  community  in  which  the  young  man  will 
live  than  the  problems  of  higher  mathematics. 
He  thinks  about  these  things  from  the  environ- 
ment of  his  daily  life  and  is  drawn  to  them  by 
the  talk  of  his  friends  and  associates.     It  is 


The  Courses  of  Study  121 

quite  proper  in  many  cases  that  he  should 
make  them  his  major  studies. 

Moreover,  these  subjects  involve  the  sort  of 
judgments  one  has  to  make  in  the  problems  of 
everyday  living.  In  mathematics  one  thinks 
along  in  a  straight  line.  The  conclusion  comes 
from  the  premise  without  a  shadow  of  doubt. 
There  is  only  one  right  result  under  the  circum- 
stances. In  the  questions  that  arise  in  the 
study  of  economics  or  history  or  government, 
different  minds  will'  fairly  come  to  different 
conclusions.  There  is  judgment  to  be  exer- 
cised, not  the  inevitable  Q.  E.  D.  Life  is  not 
all  right  or  all  wrong,  but  it  is  such  a  mixture 
that  only  a  wise  man  can  generally  do  the  best 
thing.  The  sort  of  training  which  develops 
this  capacity  is  greatly  valuable. 

Then  the  choices  are  determined  by  the  fut- 
ure career  intended  to  be  followed.  A  few 
men  will  encourage  the  idea  that  the  college 
subjects  should  be  selected  as  far  as  possible 
out  of  the  line  of  the  profession.  By  this  means 
a  broader  outlook  upon  life  will  be  secured.  The 
specialty  will  come  later  and  the  lawyer  or 
doctor  will  be  more  of  a  man  because  of  the 
solid  general  training  he  has  received  before  he 
narrows  himself  to  the  vocational  habit  and 


122  The  American  College 

limitations.  The  spirit  of  the  professional 
school  is  intense  but  not  broad.  The  osten- 
sible purpose  is  to  prepare  to  make  a  living,  and 
nothing  interests  a  young  man  more  than  this. 
He  talks  of  its  questions  at  meals  and  leisure 
moments  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else.  It  is  a 
notorious  fact  that  the  work  of  such  schools  is 
more  severe  and  purposeful  than  the  average 
work  of  an  academic  college.  But  the  atmos- 
phere of  a  college  for  a  reasonably  earnest 
student  will  develop  qualities,  both  intellectual 
and  social,  which  he  will  not  find  elsewhere. 

The  great  majority  of  our  college  students  do 
not  take  this  view  when  they  choose  their 
electives.  With  some  it  is  a  question  of  finance, 
for  the  schools  of  medicine  and  law  make  such 
serious  demands  in  the  way  of  preparation  that 
the  college  time  must  be  utilized.  So  the  med- 
ical student  will  elect  biology  and  chemistry 
and  physics;  the  intending  lawyer  will  want 
history,  economics,  and  such  law  as  he  can  find 
in  the  curriculum;  the  minister  will  want  phi- 
losophy and  sociology;  the  business  man  will 
find,  as  does  the  lawyer,  something  which  will 
bear  upon  his  future  life  in  economics  and 
commercial  law,  and  the  teacher  will  follow  the 
studies  which  he  proposes  to  teach;  while  all  can 


The  Courses  of  Study  123 

find  in  the  modern  languages  material  which  he 
may  profitably  use  afterward. 

In  such  considerations  the  classics  except  for 
a  few  teachers  will  find  little  place,  nor  will 
mathematics  except  for  the  engineers,  and  they 
are  usually  not  in  the  academic  college.  Hence 
the  loss  in  numbers  of  the  devotees  of  the  old 
studies.  As  the  tendencies  of  American  life 
have  become  more  utilitarian  and  less  cultural, 
the  sustenance  which  made  the  college  graduate 
of  a  century  ago  is  having  its  effect  upon  a  small 
minority  only. 

An  investigation  made  in  191 3  in  about  fif- 
teen of  the  better  colleges  indicates  that,  roughly 
speaking,  mathematics  and  science  occupy  one 
fourth  of  the  time  of  students,  languages  one 
fourth,  and  English  history,  philosophy,  econom- 
ics, sociology,  and  kindred  subjects  about  one 
half. 

But  more  important  than  the  studies  cho- 
sen are  the  men  who  teach.  There  are  those 
whose  personality  is  worth  feeling  whether  they 
talk  of  economics  or  Greek,  chemistry  or  art. 
They  cannot  hide  it  under  a  mass  of  scholarly 
detail,  and  the  student  comes  from  their  in- 
fluence inspired  and  enriched  either  intellectu- 
ally or  morally  or  both  by  the  power  of  the 


124  '^^^  American  College 

man  behind  the  subject.  It  is  quite  worth 
while  to  know  the  teacher  before  making  an 
election.  In  the  small  colleges  there  is  often 
one  man,  and  sometimes  more,  who  by  virtue 
of  his  quality  dominates  the  thinking  of  the 
college.  His  classes  are  large,  whatever  the 
subject.  He  influences  the  lives  of  the  young 
people  in  a  way  that  is  permanent.  He  be- 
comes an  incarnation  of  culture  or  character 
among  generations  of  graduates,  and  stories  are 
told  and  retold,  growing  better  through  the 
years,  of  his  characteristic  sayings  or  doings. 
Such  men  are  less  likely  to  become  heroes  in  the 
large  colleges,  partly  because  no  one  man  stands 
out  from  the  others,  partly  because  it  is  not 
good  form  to  recognize  hero  worship. 

The  traditional  college  course  is  one  of  four 
years.  In  earlier  days  when  boys  entered  at 
fifteen  or  sixteen  and  the  requirements  were  of 
the  grade  of  the  present  high  school  (except  as  to 
subject-matter)  the  four  years'  course  was  quite 
reasonable.  But  since  the  age  of  entrance  has 
been  raised  by  three  years,  there  have  been  many 
demands  for  shortening  the  required  residence 
to  conform  to  the  three  years  of  the  English 
and  German  universities.  Those  students  who 
wish  to  take  a  professional  course  after  gradu- 


The  Courses  of  Study  125 

ation  must  wait  till  they  are  nearly  thirty  be- 
fore much  remuneration  can  be  expected. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  if  our  secondary  schools 
would  make  the  demands  of  those  of  Continen- 
tal Europe  of  hours  per  day  and  days  per  year 
spent  at  study,  had  skilled  teachers,  and  some 
elasticity  in  rules  of  promotion  for  good  students, 
that  from  one  to  two  years  could  be  saved  from 
the  course.  Whether  the  social  and  athletic 
education  of  our  boys  is  worth  the  loss  of  time 
from  study  will  be  differently  judged.  But  it 
would  seem  quite  possible  to  admit  to  college 
at  seventeen  without  lowering  the  standard. 
Again  it  may  be  possible  for  the  college  courses 
themselves  to  allow  more  elasticity,  and  permit 
the  better  students  to  finish  in  three  years. 
This  has  been  done  in  a  few  colleges.  More  often 
a  combination  with  the  professional  school  has 
been  effected  by  which  the  first  year  in  medicine 
counts  for  the  last  year  in  college.  This  is 
only  possible  in  universities,  and  to  substitute 
for  the  senior  year  in  college  with  all  its  glori- 
ous possibilities  a  course  in  elementary  medi- 
cine would  require  great  financial  necessity  to 
balance  up  the  loss. 

Hence  the  colleges  are  holding  to  the  four 
years'  course,  partly  because  they  do  not  wish 


126  The  American  College 

to  lose  one  fourth  of  their  students,  partly  be- 
cause it  is  the  custom,  and  partly  because  it 
ensures  to  at  least  a  small  portion  of  our  people 
the  broadening  training  of  scholarship  as  a  prep- 
aration for  life's  duties. 

Is  the  present  college  course  of  study  pro- 
ducing the  sort  of  men  America  needs  ?  A  de- 
mocracy needs  leadership,  and  leadership  of  a 
peculiar  sort.  That  the  graduates  fill  the  high 
places  of  government  and  the  professions  and 
all  scholarly  pursuits  far  out  of  proportion  to 
their  numbers  is  proven  by  many  statistics. 
At  the  last  presidential  election  the  three  lead- 
ing candidates  were  graduates  of  Harvard,  Yale, 
and  Princeton  respectively,  and  while  they  do 
not  always  monopoHze  the  high  offices  in  this 
way,  three  fourths  of  the  holders  of  them,  since 
the  government  was  formed,  have  been  taken 
from  the  meagre  2  per  cent,  of  college  alumni. 
A  man's  chance  of  high  preferment  in  public 
life  is  fifty  times  better  if  he  has  back  of  him  a 
college  degree  and  a  college  training.  By  an  in- 
vestigation of  the  little  biographical  dictionary 
of  hving  American's,  "Who's  Who  in  America," 
it  appears  that  the  sort  of  distinction  needed 
to  have  one's  name  printed  there  is  vastly 
increased  by  the  college   experience.     College 


The  Courses  of  Study  127 

men  appear  greatly  out  of  proportion  to  their 
numbers  as  compared  with  others. 

The  benefit  of  such  training  for  doctors,  law- 
yers, and  for  all  intellectual  occupations  may  be 
easily  shown  by  a  similar  analysis.  But  there  is 
some  feeling  against  college  graduates  in  the 
minds  of  many  business  men  who  have  never 
had  the  training  themselves.  It  is  said  that  they 
are  too  old  to  learn,  and  too  wise  in  their  own 
eyes  to  take  advice  and  be  good  subordinates  at 
the  start.  On  the  other  hand,  many  bankers  and 
business  men  seek  them,  and  grant  them  rapid 
promotion.  They  show,  according  to  these  men, 
stronger  powers  to  grasp  the  real  meaning  of  the 
problems,  are  more  progressive,  more  gentle- 
manly, and  more  able  to  meet  competition  and 
steady  the  lines  of  development.  There  are  no 
large  statistics  to  prove  either  point,  but  one 
gets  the  idea  from  many  conferences  on  the  sub- 
ject that  in  any  business  where  trained  mental 
powers  are  useful  the  college  man  has  the  same 
advantage  that  he  has  in  law  or  medicine. 

But  the  simple  fact  of  going  through  college 
and  receiving  a  degree  will  not  produce  this 
result  in  every  case.  There  are  plenty  of  gradu- 
ates who  have  found  a  low  level  in  some  small 
job,  who  are  unfitted  for  promotion  and  will 


128  The  American  College 

never  receive  it.  These  are  they  who  have 
either  very  Hmited  intelligence  or  have  wasted 
their  time  and  depended  on  coaches  to  put  them 
through  the  examinations.  It  is  a  just  reflection 
upon  the  methods  of  some  of  our  large  colleges 
that  such  a  career  is  possible. 

A  set  of  statistics  gathered  with  some  care  at 
Harvard  indicates  that  success  in  earning  high 
marks  in  college  and  success  in  after  life  are 
closely  associated.  The  class  of  1 894  was  taken 
for  examination  fifteen  years  after  graduation. 
Three  unprejudiced  judges  were  asked  to  select 
the  "successful"  men.  They  found  twenty- 
three,  and  these  were  compared  with  twenty- 
three  others  taken  at  random  from  the  same 
class.  The  former  had  196  A's,  the  highest 
mark  in  college,  against  56  of  the  latter.  They 
had  33  D's,  the  lowest  mark  for  passing,  against 
75  of  the  latter. 

Another  test  made  by  President  Lowell 
showed  that  the  honor  men  in  college  also  led 
in  the  law  and  medical  schools.  From  these 
and  other  indications  it  is  pretty  certain  that 
the  popular  notion  that  high  marks  are  no  in- 
dication of  promise  of  after  success  is  not  correct. 
The  same  qualities  which  bring  one  bring  the 
other. 


I 


The  Courses  of  Study  129 

Insofar  as  the  statistics  have  a  bearing  on 
the  sort  of  studies  which  precede  success,  the 
advantage  Hes  with  the  classics.  In  the  case  of 
the  class  of  1894  test,  there  were  forty-nine  of 
the  "successful"  men  against  thirty  of  the 
others  who  had  elected  Latin,  and  forty-three 
against  eighteen  who  had  elected  Greek.  In 
English  and  in  German  there  was  a  slight  pre- 
ponderance, while  in  the  sciences  and  history 
the  random  men  outnumbered  the  others. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  "success"  would 
not  always  or  usually  be  measured  by  a  mer- 
cenary standard.  To  attain  high  rank  in  a 
profession,  or  an  honorable  prominence  in  pub- 
lic life,  to  have  written  treatises  of  worth  and 
usefulness,  would  be  some  of  the  elements  in  the 
selection.  Even  here  there  might  be  much  room 
for  judgment.  Many  men  of  private  worth  and 
inconspicuous  usefulness  who  had  not  held  office 
or  published  books  might  never  find  a  place  in 
"Who's  Who,"  or  receive  serious  consideration 
by  the  judges.  But  with  all  the  limitations 
proper  to  be  considered  it  still  remains  evi- 
dent that  colleges  are  making  leaders,  and  that 
in  general  good  students  do  better  afterward 
than  poor. 

But  the  question  recurs  whether  the  course 


130  The  American  College 

through  which  our  college  students  pass  is  the 
best  for  those  who  are  to  be  the  leaders  in  a 
democracy — whether  the  leadership  is  as  posi- 
tive and  courageous  and  intelligent  as  the  time 
demands.  This  is  partly  a  moral  question  and 
partly  an  intellectual  one.  It  is  amatterin which 
the  course  of  study  is  only  one  of  the  factors. 

Among  the  common  people  of  America  there 
have  been  varying  definitions  of  a  democracy. 
To  many  it  has  meant  a  sort  of  equality  gained 
by  repressing  those  whose  abilities  were  above 
the  average  as  well  as  elevating  those  who  were 
below.  It  has  been  the  idea  to  create  intel- 
lectual, as  well  as  social  and  financial,  equality. 
In  the  days  of  the  excessive  "democracy"  of  the 
JefFersonian  era  it  meant  equality  of  wages. 
The  judge  or  the  senator  needing  only  good 
common  sense  should  have  his  dollar  a  day  as 
the  laborer  had.  Sometimes  it  meant  shabby 
clothing  for  those  who  could  afford  better,  or 
doing  work  which  cheaper  labor  might  better 
do.  In  our  schools  it  has  often,  we  might  say 
generally,  meant  paying  special  attention  to 
the  lower  end  of  the  class,  on  the  assumption 
that  the  upper  end  could  take  care  of  itself — 
and  so  it  could  if  the  passing  of  examinations 
were  the  chief  object  of  education.     How  many 


The  Courses  of  Study  131 

uncommon  men  have  had  their  ambitions 
stifled  and  their  aspirations  dulled  by  a  strictly 
graded  system  in  school  or  college  which  tied 
them  to  the  dead  weight  of  mediocrity  or 
stupidity,  no  one  can  estimate.  They  have 
needed  direction  and  stimulus,  but  the  teacher 
has  been  so  busy  getting  the  tail  end  through  the 
tests  that  there  has  been  no  time  to  enter  into 
the  problems  of  the  bright  youth.  American 
education  succeeds  as  that  of  no  other  nation 
perhaps  has  done  in  creating  a  strong,  self-re- 
specting, well-informed,  independent,  common 
man,  with  all  the  virtues  and  limitations 
which  the  common  man  in  mass  has.  He 
is  urgent  to  right  wrongs  by  the  most  di- 
rect, if  not  always  the  wisest,  methods.  He  has 
prejudices  against  the  unusual  which  are  hard 
to  remove.  He  fights  his  battles  bravely  by 
methods  which  are  sometimes  suggestive  of  the 
man  "who  was  so  furious  against  monarchy  that 
he  would  not  wear  a  crown  even  to  his  hat." 
He  is  slow  to  accept  the  experience  of  others 
and  tries  out  problems  by  means  which  have 
often  failed  in  the  past,  and  which  more  knowl- 
edge would  induce  him  to  discard.  Yet  because 
he  is  sincere  and  honest  and  brave  and  intelli- 
gent he  accomplishes  real  progress  even  if  some- 


132  The  American  College 

times  blundering  and  spasmodic.  If  with  this 
prevailing  intelligence  could  be  combined  a 
hearty  respect  for  well-trained  leadership  and 
the  development  of  systems  which  would  create 
such  leadership  the  efficiency  of  American  edu- 
cation could  not  be  questioned.  This  is  the 
problem  of  the  American  college. 

One  of  the  qualities  necessary  for  influence  in 
a  democracy  is  the  ability  to  think  effectively 
and  to  reason  accurately.  A  college  which  does 
not  secure  this  result  with  its  best  students  is  a 
failure.  But  the  way  to  learn  to  think  is  to 
think,  and  a  study  which  does  not  encourage 
thinking,  but  simply  memorizing  or  pleasant 
reading  or  intelligent  listening,  will  not  make 
thinkers.  They  are  to  be  trained  by  the  severe 
application  of  their  own  mental  powers  to  some 
worthy  subject,  and  not  otherwise,  and  a  test  of 
the  value  of  any  course  will  be  its  efficiency  in 
this  way.  Interest  may  come,  indeed  will  come 
in  time,  and  the  value  of  the  study  will  be  in- 
creased if  the  student  is  so  absorbed  with  its  con- 
tent that  he  gives  to  it  with  enthusiasm  his  most 
strenuous  mental  effort.  Its  value  will  not  be 
lost,  however,  even  if  he  has  to  force  his  mind  to 
work  against  strong  temptations  to  the  contrary. 

All  studies  will  yield  this  discipline  if  prop- 


The  Courses  of  Study  133 

erly  pursued.  With  some,  however,  it  may  be 
evaded  and  still  the  conditions  of  the  college  as 
to  marks  satisfied.  It  is  quite  possible  in  any 
of  the  reading  subjects  for  an  intelligent  youth 
to  listen  to  the  lectures,  read  the  authorities, 
and  write  somewhat  luminously  for  three  hours 
on  the  examination  questions  without  any  serious 
thinking,  and  the  temptation  to  do  this  and 
nothing  more  is  even  for  a  creditable  student 
often  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  It  is  more  diffi- 
cult in  mathematics  and  classics  with  their  more 
definite  requirements  and  more  individual  reci- 
tation tests  to  have  even  moderate  success  in 
this  way.  Of  course  coaching  on  a  text-book 
or  a  pony  in  translation  will  go  some  distance, 
but  these  fall  to  the  ground  in  the  face  of  original 
problems  and  sight  translation.  This  may  be 
an  explanation  of  the  greater  "success''  of  the 
classical  men  in  the  Harvard  test. 

It  is  of  course  quite  possible  for  one  to  think 
most  seriously  and  effectively  over  the  questions 
of  history,  of  literature,  or  of  economics.  In- 
deed these  subjects  when  in  the  hands  of  a  master 
are  distinctly  thought-provoking,  and  dealing  as 
they  often  do  with  questions  which  the  man 
meets  very  practically  in  daily  Hfe,  the  thinking 
is  right  to  the  point.    They  ought  always  to  yield 


134  The  American  College 

this  result,  and,  if  it  were  so,  it  is  probable  that 
the  leadership  of  their  students  would  be  more 
certain  and  less  desultory  and  experimental. 

The  presence  in  a  class  of  any  considerable  num- 
ber of  indifferent  men  is  damaging  to  the  disci- 
pline for  leadership.  A  little  group  of  thoroughly 
interested  and  thoughtful  men  of  high  intellectual 
qualities  is  the  best  condition  for  mental  develop- 
ment. The  atmosphere  will  compel  right  think- 
ing. Add  to  this  a  teacher  of  accurate  knowledge 
and  strong  personality,  himself  a  thinker,  and 
the  ideal  circumstances  exist.  Perhaps  colleges 
should  more  than  they  do  group  the  students 
according  to  their  abilities  and  earnestness.  The 
discipline  needed  for  the  heavy  or  careless  men 
is  a  burden  to  the  others.  And  the  freedom 
and  direction  which  give  spirit  and  purpose  to  the 
bright  men  are  wasted  upon  those  who  kre  in- 
competent or  unwilling  to  follow  other  than  the 
line  of  least  resistance. 

In  an  effort  wholly  praiseworthy  to  aid  the 
common  man,  the  American  college  forgets 
the  sustenance  needed  by  the  uncommon.  Yet 
with  the  greater  elasticity  of  the  elective  system 
and  the  opportunity  to  take  more,  and  some- 
times less,  than  the  normal  amount  the  mis- 
fortune is  lessening  with  the  years. 


CHAPTER  IV 

STUDENT    LIFE 

The  question  of  discipline  has  always  occu- 
pied a  large,  and  not  infrequently  the  largest, 
place  in  college  Hfe.  It  has  been  the  alternate 
joy  and  confusion  of  the  student  body,  a  valu- 
able means  of  sifting  out  unfit  instructors,  and 
the  bane  of  many  a  worthy  and  scholarly  man 
who  should  not  have  been  sifted  out.  It  has 
become  less  and  less  a  problem  as  the  years  go 
by.  The  colonial  colleges,  which  numbered 
their  students  by  the  scores,  had  more  to  trouble 
them  than  do  the  same  institutions  in  these 
days  when  they  count  by  the  thousands.  The 
change  has  resulted  largely  from  the  abolition 
of  unnecessary  rules  and  the  consequent  in- 
crease of  community  interests  between  teachers 
and  students. 

The  first  colleges,  being  mainly  theological, 
were  subjected  to  the  strict  regime  which  in 
family  and  school  alike  was  supposed  to  be  nec- 
essary  to  the  proper  development  of  youth. 

135 


136  The  American  College 

The  manner  of  life  assumed  to  be  right  by  the 
wise  governors  was  imposed  on  the  young  men 
with  the  assurance  that  it  was  essential  to  their 
highest  good.  Their  own  view  of  the  matter 
was  the  last  consideration.  Obey  or  take  the 
penalty  was  the  challenge,  and  in  many  cases  it 
was  accepted.  They  were  often  only  boys  with 
the  sense  of  independence  and  fraternity  which 
a  group  of  boys  will  always  develop  when  ap- 
proached in  this  way.  Again  and  again  they 
would  organize  and  rebel.  Almost  every  form 
of  amusement  was  forbidden.  Every  act  of  the 
day  was  strictly  prescribed.  Harvard  prohib- 
ited 83  different  offences.*  Yale  varied  the 
list  somewhat,  but  was  not  less  rigorous.  The 
professors  were  clergymen,  pious  and  learned, 
but  often  unsympathetic.  When  the  pressure 
was  too  great,  or  when  a  bold  leader  appeared, 
there  would  be  an  organized  rebellion,  ulti- 
mately stamped  out  by  imprisonments  and 
expulsions.  But  ordinary  life  was  a  series  of 
sporadic  attempts  to  violate  rules  without  detec- 
tion, and  score  on  the  opposite  side  by  mak- 
ing miserable  the  life  of  some  poor  teacher.  On 
his  part  he  was  to  be  detective  and  police- 
man, with  the  odds  against  him.     Woe  be  to 

*Josiah  Quincy,  "  History  of  Harvard  University,"  Vol.  I,  p.  515. 


Student  Life  137 

him  if  he  were  caught  ** sneaking."  He  had 
violated  the  rules  of  the  game  and  deserved  no 
mercy.  The  same  rules  would  not,  however, 
prevent  the  boys  from  any  amount  of  under- 
hand actions. 

This  tendency  took  away  the  influence  of  the 
professor.  To  be  on  confidential  terms  with 
him  was  a  mark  of  treachery  to  the  class.  It 
was  an  offer  to  seek  favor  from  the  enemy  for 
an  unworthy  purpose,  called  at  Harvard  "fish- 
ing" and  elsewhere  at  a  later  date  "boot-Hck- 
ing."  If  a  youth  with  a  zeal  for  learning  which 
the  teacher  was  anxious  to  stimulate  would  ask 
questions  in  private,  or  even  too  frequently  in 
the  class  exercise,  he  was  soon  shamed  out  of  it. 

All  sorts  of  disorders  were  created  for  the  joy 
of  seeing  the  trouble  caused  for  the  professor  in 
charge.  It  is  said  that  one  of  the  famous  inter- 
national lawyers  of  the  day  from  Germany  was 
with  strange  unwisdom  put  in  charge  of  the 
campus  of  a  large  eastern  college  at  night.  His 
students  led  him  a  chase  over  a  pile  of  bricks, 
and  were  overjoyed  to  hear  him  as  he  got  up, 
rubbing  his  shins,  exclaim:  "All  dis  for  zwei 
tausend  a  year."  Fires,  cannon  balls  rolled 
along  the  corridors,  animals  introduced  into  the 
residence  halls,  wagons  taken  apart  at  great 


138  The  American  College 

effort  and  put  together  again  on  tops  of  build- 
ings, thousands  of  schemes  which  the  wit  of 
youth  could  devise,  were  employed  to  draw  out 
the  unhappy  governor  and  give  zest  to  life  as 
his  ofttimes  futile  efforts  to  detect  the  offender 
were  watched  with  glee. 

This  condition  in  its  extreme  forms  was  not 
chronic  in  all  colleges.  A  wise  and  gracious  per- 
sonality would  in  spite  of  untoward  conditions 
win  the  esteem  of  the  students,  and  a  sentiment 
would  grow  up  that  it  was  mean  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  him.  But  even  this  tolerance  was 
not  always  wholesome.  It  meant  that  it  would 
last  only  so  long  as  he  behaved  so  as  to  win 
approval. 

The  class  was  the  unit  in  all  matters  of  dis- 
cipline. Though  not  organized  as  at  present, 
its  members  were  expected  to  stand  together 
against  the  authorities  and  other  classes  when- 
ever its  rights  were  threatened.  To  give  in- 
formation on  a  fellow  was  an  unforgivable 
crime;  to  sustain  him  by  any  effective  means, 
even  falsehood,  a  very  venial  one,  lapsing  into 
a  virtue.  Hence  a  strong  class  spirit  was  de- 
veloped which  often  lasted  through  life.  And 
when  its  members,  grown  wise  through  decades 
of  life  in  the  world  at  large,  grave  men  holding 


Student  Life  139 

positions  of  trust  and  honor,  would  get  to- 
gether to  talk  over  their  college  days,  it  was 
more  often  the  exciting  struggles  against  author- 
ity, successful  or  otherwise,  that  excited  their 
enthusiasm  than  any  intellectual  efforts  or  tri- 
umphs. 

Yet  among  these  old  graduates  the  just 
governor  received  his  deserts;  the  weak  one  was 
laughed  at  and  forgiven.  As  Gladstone  said  of 
his  old  Eton  master.  Dr.  Keate,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  a  dinner  given  in  his  honor  years  after 
school-boy  days:  *'I  suppose  it  to  be  beyond 
doubt  that  of  the  assembled  company  the  vastly 
preponderating  majority  had  been  under  his 
sway  at  Eton;  and  if,  when  in  that  condition, 
any  one  of  them  had  been  asked  how  he  liked 
Dr.  Keate,  he  would  beyond  question  have 
answered,  'Keate?  Oh,  I  hate  him!'  It  is 
equally  beyond  doubt  that  to  the  persons  of 
the  whole  of  them,  with  the  rarest  exceptions,  it 
had  been  the  case  of  Dr.  Keate  to  adminis- 
ter the  salutary  correction  of  the  birch.  But 
upon  this  occasion,  when  his  name  had  been 
announced,  the  scene  was  indescribable.  Queen 
and  Queen  Dowager  alike  vanished  into  in- 
significance. The  roar  of  cheering  had  a  begin- 
ning but  never  knew  satiety  nor  end.     Like 


140  The  American  College 

the  huge  waves  at  Biarritz,  the  floods  of  cheer- 
ing continually  recommenced;  the  whole  proc- 
ess was  such  that  we  seemed  all  to  have  lost 
our  self-possession  and  to  be  hardly  able  to  keep 
our  seats.  When  at  length  it  became  pos- 
sible, Keate  rose:  that  is  to  say,  his  head  was 
projected  sHghtly  over  the  heads  of  his  two 
neighbors.  He  struggled  to  speak;  I  will  not 
say  I  heard  every  syllable,  for  there  were  no 
syllables;  speak  he  could  not.  He  tried  in  vain 
to  mumble  a  word  or  two,  but  wholly  failed, 
recommenced  the  vain  struggle,  and  sat  down. 
It  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  moving  spec- 
tacles that  in  my  whole  life  I  have  witnessed." 

Unsympathetic  conditions,  while  gradually 
ameliorating  with  the  years,  do  not  belong  to 
colonial  days  alone.  Even  to  the  present  time 
something  of  the  spirit  of  antagonism  exists  in 
some  colleges.  Many  a  man  now  living  can 
tell  stories  more  vivid  than  any  mentioned  here 
of  boyish  attempts  to  get  the  better  of  the 
teachers. 

Several  factors  have  entered  into  the  problem 
to  produce  the  improvement.  One  is  the  rec- 
ognition by  college  authorities  that  all  good 
things  are  not  and  cannot  be  produced  by 
regulations,  however  plausibly  wise  these  may 


Student  Life  141 

be.  The  83  rules  of  Harvard  and  the  corre- 
sponding rules  of  other  colleges  regulating 
student  conduct  have  been  practically  abolished. 
As  fast  as  the  abolition  has  taken  place  there 
has  been  a  corresponding  increase  of  good  feel- 
ing. Another  factor  is  athletics  and  other 
activities  which  are  outlets  for  student  energies 
and  destroy  the  incentive  to  rowdy  disorder. 
Another  is  the  elective  system,  which  by  en- 
abling the  men  to  take  studies  in  subjects  they 
enjoy,  or  under  men  they  appreciate,  has  drawn 
the  elements  of  college  life  into  more  friendly 
relations.  Another  is  the  increasing  age  of 
college  students  and  a  consequent  more  manly 
view  of  the  sensible  student  attitude. 

In  place  of  government  by  rule  and  penalty 
has  grown  up,  more  or  less  organized,  govern- 
ment by  the  students  themselves.  In  many 
cases  a  student  "Council"  or  "Senate  has 
been  created  with  elected  representatives  from 
the  different  classes,  which  takes  in  hand  in- 
fractions of  good  order,  and  applies  the  nec- 
essary correctives.  The  college  has  passed 
through  the  stages  of  the  modern  state,  first,  a 
despotic,  then  a  Hmited,  monarchy,  then  a  re- 
public. As  with  the  state,  the  rule  of  the 
governed  is  often  spasmodic,  sometimes  unwise 


142  The  American  College 

and  unequal  in  details,  but  placing  responsibility 
upon  the  students  themselves.  It  is  therefore 
highly  educative  and  enlists  all  parties  in  a 
common  effort  to  promote  the  efficiency  of  the 
college  and  its  good  name.  Under  its  in- 
fluence the  extremes  of  folly  and  rowdyism 
have  largely  passed  away  and  a  common  interest 
in  intellectual  and  moral  problems,  shared  by 
officers  and  students  in  sensible  manly  relations 
to  each  other,  has  been  created. 

Many  such  experiments  have  been  failures, 
due  to  the  hesitation  of  the  faculty  to  allow 
sufficient  authority,  or  to  the  lack  of  efficient 
leadership  among  the  students,  or  to  the  ex- 
istence of  traditions  fanned  by  alumni  influence 
created  by  ancient  conditions  and  exaggerated 
by  time.  It  requires  almost  if  not  quite  as  much 
wisdom  and  effort  on  the  part  of  a  President 
or  dean  to  advise  and  direct  a  self-government 
association  as  to  manage  the  college  without 
one.  The  governing  board  is  usually  anxious  to 
do  right,  but  is  inexperienced  and  influenced  by 
temporary  fluctuations  of  student  opinion.  It 
i§  quite  as  likely  to  err  on  the  side  of  severity  as 
of  leniency.  Without  interfering  with  its  au- 
tonomy, a  wise  head  will  often  out  of  his  own 
experience  and  judgment  extend  some  welcome 


Student  Life  143 

words  of  counsel  which  will  smooth  the  way  and 
make  the  decisions  practical  and  acceptable. 
The  system  is  not  intended  mainly  to  ease  the 
burden  of  executive  officers,  though  it  often  has 
this  effect,  and  substitutes  for  the  grind  of 
fighting  students  the  joy  of  leading  them.  But 
the  creation  of  right  standards  of  thinking  and 
Hving  and  the  growth  of  right  relations  through- 
out the  college  are  its  sufficient  justification. 

The  *' honor  system"  in  examinations  is 
one  phase  of  self-government.  In  many  cases 
it  has  failed  ingloriously.  In  many  it  has  been 
a  partial  success  in  reducing  cheating  and  creat- 
ing a  standard  against  it.  In  some  it  has  been 
an  effective  guard  against  all  forms  of  false- 
hood and  deception.  That  dishonesty  in  ex- 
aminations has  been  of  frequent  occurrence,  and 
that  it  has  been  condoned  by  public  opinion  in 
the  college,  are  unfortunately  true.  So  strenu- 
ous has  been  the  proctoring,  so  open  have  been 
the  arrangements  to  outwit  the  intentional 
fraud,  that  it  has  seemed  to  some  a  battle  in 
which  all  means  are  fair.  In  some  colleges  the 
**  honor ''was  not  to  cheat  to  the  disadvantage 
of  a  fellow.  Hence  in  a  contest  for  a  prize  or 
rank  where  the  success  of  one  would  involve 
the  loss  of  another  it  is  easy  to  create  a  senti- 


144  The  American  College 

ment  for  fairness.  But  to  save  a  poor  un- 
fortunate from  failure,  to  get  him  above  that 
magic  line  which  makes  the  difference  between 
promotion  and  dropping,  it  often  seems  rather 
a  kindly  act  to  pass  a  friendly  paper  or  to  look 
with  easy  tolerance  upon  the  use  of  a  skilfully 
prepared  abstract  containing  in  compact  form 
the  essentials  of  the  subject. 

The  simplest  form  of  the  honor  system  is 
not  a  "system"  at  all.  There  exists  between 
some  men  and  the  class  such  a  sympathetic 
feeling  that  the  room  may  be  left  unguarded 
with  perfect  safety.  Next  in  order  is  the  trust 
in  the  individual  honor  of  the  student  ex- 
pressed by  a  pledge.  This  may  work  with 
some  teachers  at  all  times  and  in  a  few  insti- 
tutions. But  in  general  there  are  always  a  few 
who,  if  they  can  deceive  with  safety,  will  not 
be  restrained  by  honor  alone.  If  they  cheat 
with  impunity  the  number  will  increase  and  the 
plan  ultimately  break  down;  and  nothing  is 
worse  than  an  "honor  system'*  which  does  not 
work.  To  the  original  guilt  of  deceit  is  added 
the  feeUng  that  honor  is  also  a  part  of  the  game 
of  fooling  the  professor. 

The  honor  systems  that  have  succeeded  with 
some  degree  of  permanence  have  involved  the 


Student  Life  145 

sure  detection  and  punishment  of  offenders. 
The  pledge  given  has  usually  been  that  the  in- 
dividual will  not  receive  or  furnish  ilHcit  aid,  and 
will  report  doubtful  cases  to  a  duly  organized 
student  committee.  If  the  student  body  is  not 
willing  in  good  faith  to  carry  out  such  a  pledge, 
the  system  usually  fails  in  time.  Something 
more  than  100  colleges  in  the  United  States 
have  such  systems  in  operation.  In  a  few,  as  in 
the  University  of  Virginia,  the  sentiment  is  so 
strong  that  an  offender  leaves  as  soon  as  detected, 
for  he  is  adjudged  an  unfit  person  to  associate 
with  gentlemen.  This  creates  a  standard  of 
honesty  which  associates  all  forms  of  lying  with 
vulgarity  and  easily  perpetuates  itself.  In 
others,  as  Princeton,  the  plan  works  well,  but 
occasional  trials  of  criminals  have  to  be  held  by 
the  student  court  and  a  penalty  adjudged. 
This  penalty  may  be  carried  out  by  the  court 
itself  even  to  the  extent  of  expulsion,  or  it  may 
be  recommended  to  the  dean  or  faculty.  In 
many  other  colleges  the  experiment  is  too  new 
to  determine  its  final  success.  It  is  likely  to 
succeed  in  the  smaller  institutions  of  high-grade, 
homogeneous  students,  where  public  opinion 
will  bring  itself  to  bear  effectively  and  spon- 
taneously upon  the  few  who  bring  wrong  ideas 


146  The  American  College 

into  the  college;  or  in  the  larger  places  when 
firmly  established.  Any  system,  honor  or  proc- 
toring,  which  permits  cheating  not  only  de- 
feats its  object  but  demoralizes  the  college  and 
sends  out  graduates  who  will  condone  fraud  in 
business  and  politics.  The  first  condition  is 
that  it  shall  be  effective. 

The  personal  morals  of  college  students  is 
a  subject  difficult  to  investigate.  Wherever 
young  men  of  college  age  are  associated  to- 
gether, apart  from  good  home  influences,  there 
is  immorality,  probably  less  in  colleges  than 
elsewhere.  It  is  the  opinion  of  those  who  have 
rather  widely  studied  the  subject  that  drinking 
to  excess  is  decreasing,  and  that  the  orgies  of 
past  generations,  which  left  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  participants  under  the  table,  have 
disappeared  entirely  from  most  colleges  and 
been  reduced  in  frequency  and  excess  in  others. 
There  is  enough,  however,  to  make  them  the 
proper  objects  of  criticism  by  the  public,  and 
of  responsible  action  by  officials. 

In  the  matter  of  social  vice,  more  dangerous 
and  more  difficult  to  determine  the  facts,  there 
is  not  the  same  encouraging  impression.  In 
many  colleges  student  standards  and  faculty 
efforts  have  largely  eradicated  it.  In  others,  due 


Student  Life  147 

to  numbers  and  surroundings,  conditions  exist 
which  would  have  been  impossible  a  century 
ago. 

Size  alone  will  not  determine  the  morality  of 
a  college.  The  worst  place  is  the  debauched 
small  college,  where  vicious  standards  prevail 
and  where  the  forces  of  virtue  are  not  strong 
enough  to  organize  against  them.  The  best 
place  for  a  young  man  to  be  introduced  into  is 
the  good  small  college,  where  external  con- 
ditions and  internal  sentiment  combine  to 
reduce  temptation  and  to  start  the  new  fresh- 
man from  a  good  home  into  the  habit  of  re- 
sponsible right  living.  The  neutral  boy  is  the 
one  by  whom  to  test  the  goodness  of  a  college 
in  this  respect.  There  are  some  strong  enough 
to  resist  everything.  There  are  some  bad  by 
antecedent  influences  whom  it  is  difficult  to 
change.  But  the  great  majority  of  young 
men  respond  rather  readily  to  public  opinion 
and  the  influence  of  associates.  If  they  find 
a  healthy  dislike  for  dissipation  in  all  forms 
they  naturally  in  these  early  days  away  from 
home,  with  the  enthusiasm  they  bring  to  enter 
fully  into  the  best  of  college  life,  easily  ac- 
cept the  prevailing  tendencies  and  never  know 
serious  lapses.     If  on  the  other  hand  vice  seems 


148  The  American  College 

to  be  "the  thing,"  and  the  moral  and  physi- 
cal degradation  resulting  from  it  is  touched 
upon  lightly  and  as  a  matter  of  common  oc- 
currence, many  will  fall  more  or  less  readily 
into  the  ways  which  seem  to  be  sanctioned  by 
prevailing  custom,  and  be  injured  before  they 
know  it. 

Colleges  in  large  cities,  or  in  factory  towns 
where  saloons  and  other  dangerous  influences 
exist,  have  a  harder  struggle  with  the  agents  of 
vice  than  when  located  in  country  districts. 
In  the  large  universities  there  is  always  a  con- 
siderable number  of  vicious  students.  But 
there  are  also  many  others,  and  the  new  boy  is 
not  bound  by  the  necessities  of  his  surroundings 
to  group  himself  with  any  class  which  he  does 
not  choose.  If  he  goes  wrong  it  will  be  less 
likely  to  be  known  than  in  the  small  country 
college,  and  if  he  has  a  strong  inclination  toward 
the  right  he  will  find  many  fellows  with  whom 
he  will  wish  to  associate,  to  strengthen  his  own 
inclination  and  influence  others  for  good. 

But  as  in  the  matter  of  ordinary  discipline, 
the  remedy  for  profligacy  lies  largely  in  the 
hands  of  the  students  themselves,  fortified  by 
the  sympathetic  advice  of  wise  ofl&cers.  This 
is  being  brought  about  largely  by  the  Young 


Student  Life  149 

Men's  Christian  Association  and  kindred  so- 
cieties. The  first  college  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s  were 
started  at  the  University  of  Michigan  and  the 
University  of  Virginia  in  1858.  In  1877  the 
student  division  of  the  association  was  formed. 
Since  then  the  growth  has  been  rapid,  until  there 
are  at  the  present  time  773  student  associations 
in  schools  and  colleges,  with  a  total  membership 
of  about  80,000.  Relatively  they  are  the  strong- 
est and  most  potent  in  the  smaller  denomi- 
national colleges,  where  they  frequently  include 
a  majority  of  the  students. 

During  the  college  year  191 3-14  the  total 
weekly  attendance  was  31,958;  nearly  $100,000 
was  raised  for  missions,  and  $280,000  for  cur- 
rent expenses. 

They  often  take  up  honestly  the  practical 
problems  of  student  morals.  If  they  see  a 
freshman  starting  wrong  he  does  not  go  without 
warning.  Gambling  and  other  vices  are  often 
overcome  by  private  effort  before  the  faculty 
knows  of  their  existence.  Weekly  meetings  are 
held  for  devotional  purposes,  sometimes  ad- 
dressed by  outside  speakers,  sometimes  having 
free  discussions  affecting  the  moral  and  religious 
conditions  with  which  they  are  so  well  acquainted. 
They  conduct  Bible  classes  within  the  college 


150  The  American  College 

and  in  the  neighborhood,  teach  foreigners  the 
English  language,  and  take  active  part  in 
settlement  work  and  other  social  activities. 
In  many  colleges  they  own  buildings  which 
serve  as  clubhouses  for  their  membership  as 
well  as  offices  and  halls  for  their  lines  of  work. 
They  usually  belong  to  the  International  Y.  M. 

C.  A.,  though  in  some  cases  the  clause  in  this 
association  making  a  distinction  between  mem- 
bers of  "evangelical"  churches  and  others  is 
objected  to. 

In  many  places  they  contribute  the  main 
factor  in  maintaining  the  religious  life  of  the 
college.  In  earlier  days  this  life  was  considered 
a  matter  of  imposition.  Attendance  at  church 
services  twice  or  thrice  on  Sunday  and  on 
chapel  exercises  on  week  days  was  obligatory. 
This  is  now  often  relaxed  and  the  religious 
work,  as  the  student  government,  is  placed  upon 
the  responsible  action  of  the  students  themselves. 
The  result  is  scantier  attendance  on  religious 
exercises  but  the  creation  of  a  certain  number 
of  more  sincere  and  earnest  Christians.  The 
stimulation  of  personal  religious  life  and  effort 
finds  a  great  impetus  in  the  summer  conferences. 

D.  L.  Moody  in  1886  established  the  first  one  at 
Northfield,  when  nearly  one  half  the  250  dele- 


Student  Life  151 

gates  volunteered  to  go  out  as  missionaries. 
Within  ten  years  the  number  offering  themselves 
to  mission  boards  had  increased  fivefold.  Since 
then  the  ranks  of  Christian  workers  in  foreign 
lands  have  been  largely  recruited  from  the 
colleges,  and  the  work  of  Christianization  has 
gone  on  with  unprecedented  rapidity.  Besides, 
the  attenders  often  came  back  from  these  con- 
ferences to  their  colleges  with  a  quickening  of 
their  own  religious  spirit  and  a  desire  to  de- 
velop the  religious  interests  of  their  fellows. 
These  intercollegiate  gatherings  of  the  Y.  M.  C. 
A.  and  Student  Volunteers  are  one  of  the  strong- 
est agencies  for  promoting  the  best  and  most 
sincere  interior  life.  Men  have  cared  so  little 
for  adverse  opinion  in  the  face  of  the  feeling  of 
the  supreme  importance  of  the  growth  of  re- 
ligious life  and  character  that  they  have  not 
hesitated  to  become  open  and  urgent  advocates. 
The  college  circles  have  responded  and  the 
militant  activities  of  all  Christians  at  home  and 
abroad  have  been  greatly  increased.  If  the 
colleges  are  the  headquarters  of  some  tendencies 
which  seem  antagonistic  to  religion  they  are  also 
the  homes  of  its  most  intelligent  and  effective 
advocates.  This  result  comes  from  direct  stu- 
dent effort,  with  or  without  faculty  assistance. 


152  The  American  College 

The  formation  of  voluntary  literary  societies 
by  the  students  began  just  before  the  Revolu- 
tion. There  is  not  much  doubt  that  some  of  the 
fathers  of  our  nation  received  their  impetus  in 
these  societies,  for  we  find  them  about  1770  dis- 
cussing such  subjects  as  the  drinking  of  tea. 
They  soon  came  to  hold  an  important  part  in 
all  colleges.  They  were  literary,  debating,  and 
forensic  organizations,  holding  weekly  meet- 
ings, which  were  largely  attended,  and  often 
collecting  hbraries  which  sometimes  contained 
as  many  as  10,000  volumes.  All  those  fortunate 
enough  to  obtain  membership  felt  them  to  be  of 
the  highest  value  in  educating  the  interest  in 
literary  and  political  affairs  and  in  training 
in  speaking  and  writing.  They  bloomed  for 
a  century,  until  the  time  that  the  task  of  teach- 
ing English  to  all  the  students  was  assumed  by 
the  college  authorities.  This  instruction,  more 
general  but  in  some  cases  less  efficient,  seemed  to 
take  away  one  of  the  great  incentives  for  the 
private  organizations. 

They  were  succeeded  by  the  fraternities. 
The  first  of  these  was  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa, 
founded  at  WilHam  and  Mary  in  1776.  A 
group  of  patriotic  Virginians  met  together  to 
discuss  subjects  of  current  interest  both  liter- 


Student  Life  153 

ary  and  political.  Harvard,  Yale,  and  Dart- 
mouth formed  branches  before  the  end  of  the 
century,  and  the  intercollegiate  idea  became 
established.  There  are  now  some  eighty  colleges 
having  chapters,  in  the  main  being  graduate 
rather  than  undergraduate  associations.  To 
form  a  chapter  a  college  must  have  high  aca- 
demic standing,  and  not  more  that  25  per  cent, 
of  the  graduating  class,  to  be  determined  mainly 
by  college  rank  in  studies,  is  permitted  to  be 
elected.  Thus  it  becomes  distinctly  a  scholarly 
rather  than  a  social  organization. 

Other  Greek  letter  societies  were  not  estab- 
lished till  about  1825.  These  were  and  are  so- 
cial in  their  purposes.  They  flourished  greatly  as 
a  result  of  the  decay  of  the  literary  societies, 
and  now  constitute  a  factor  of  great  consequence 
in  college  life.  Princeton  under  the  leadership 
of  President  McCosh  prohibited  them,  and  a 
number  of  smaller  colleges,  objecting  to  their 
promises  of  secrecy  and  the  tendency  to  form 
permanent  factions,  has  opposed  their  entrance. 
But  these  are  few  compared  with  those  who 
have  them. 

For  a  time  they  were  only  social  organizations, 
meeting  where  they  could.  But  as  the  members 
went  out  into  the  world   and   made   money, 


154  '^^^  American  College 

fraternity  houses  were  erected,  and  they  came 
to  be  recognized  as  necessary  and  often  valu- 
able factors  in  college  life.  Where  there  are 
not  dormitories  sufficient  to  house  all  the 
students  they  supply  homes,  which  are  usually 
better  than  the  boarding-houses  of  the  town,  to 
a  limited  number.  Some  of  these  fraternity 
houses  are  expensive  and  elaborately  furnished 
buildings  where  the  members  live  in  considerable 
luxury.  Others  are  simple  in  equipment  and 
standards  of  living.  Where  a  small  college  sup- 
plies halls  of  residence  of  satisfactory  character 
for  all  its  students  there  seems  very  little  excuse 
for  the  existence  of  fraternities,  except  as  social 
features,  and  in  such  instances  the  nuisance  of 
them  probably  outweighs  the  good. 

The  fraternities  differ  greatly  in  their  utility. 
A  few  of  them  are  centres  of  drinking  and 
dissipation.  Some  are  recognized  as  the  head- 
quarters of  the  sporting  interests,  with  but  little 
intellectual  stimulation.  Some  take  care  of 
their  delinquent  members,  are  proud  of  their 
scholastic  record,  and  are  used  by  the  faculty 
to  maintain  college  standards.  One  of  their 
main  utilities  is  to  form  connecting  links  with 
their  alumni  members,  and  to  act  as  hosts  when 
these  return  to  the  college.     Like  every  other 


Student  Life  155 

institution  not  inherently  bad,  they  are  useful 
or  the  reverse  in  proportion  as  they  are  managed 
wisely  by  the  college  officials. 

Dto  McCosh  said:  "Nearly  every  professor 
acknowledges  them  to  be  an  evil,  but  is  afraid 
of  them."  In  some  cases  they  have  opposed 
authority,  determined  college  elections,  created 
unhealthy  rivalry,  and  placed  the  control  of 
influence  in  the  wrong  hands.  In  a  few  they 
have  succeeded  in  driving  out  a  President  or 
other  officer  who  has  opposed  them.  But  these 
are  usually  incidents  of  bad  management,  and 
while  it  probably  is  unwise  to  introduce  societies 
into  small  colleges  where  they  have  not  existed, 
they  can  be  made  important  agencies  for  good 
where  college  homes  are  needed  and  where  a  con- 
troUing  and  sympathetic  management  uses  them 
for  good  ends. 

In  colleges  for  women  sororities  take  the 
place  of  fraternities,  without  their  objection- 
able tendencies. 

There  are  many  proofs  that  fraternity  men 
stand  lower  in  their  scholastic  rank  than  non- 
fraternity  men.  Whether  the  fraternity  influ- 
ences produce  the  result,  or  whether  the  sort  of 
men  that  are  elected  into  the  fraternities  are  the 
non-studious  sort,  may  be  a  matter  for  dispute. 


156  The  American  College 

The  University  of  Michigan  for  191 2-1 3 
published  statistics  which  placed  the  average 
marks  for  the  general  fraternities  at  the  foot  of 
the  list,  preceded  in  order  by  the  athletes,  pro- 
fessional fraternities,  men's  clubs,  entire  uni- 
versity, unorganized  students,  general  sororities, 
and  women's  clubs.  In  the  University  of  Kansas 
the  same  general  order  prevailed,  except  that 
the  athletes  stood  lower  than  fraternity  men. 
Similar  stories  come  from  Stanford  University, 
Cornell,  and  Chicago.  A  writer*  commenting 
on  these  figures  says:  "I  have  often  speculated 
as  to  what  the  Greek  letters  stand  for,  but  now 
I  know:  they  stand  for  poor  scholarship." 

But  the  supreme  interest  of  the  college  student 
outside  his  regular  work  (and  to  be  candid  in 
many  instances  this  exception  cannot  be  made) 
is  in  athletics.  This  is  a  matter  of  recent  growth . 
Of  course  all  young  animals  have  some  form  of 
play,  but  like  other  young  animals  the  college 
boy  in  past  years  had  for  his  play  some  game 
of  low  organization  spontaneously  evolved. 
It  was  something  with  which  the  college  au- 
thorities need  have  no  concern  except  to  prevent 
it  from  trenching  on  the  regular  duties,  an 
attitude  expressed  in  the  motto  on  the  wall  of 

*  Edwin  E.  Slosson  in  The  Independent,  August  3,  1914. 


Student  Life  157 

the  room  of  a  sporting  student,  "Study  must 
not  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  main 
occupation  of  this  room."  There  was  some 
recognition  that  exercise  was  necessary  to 
health,  and  the  early  New  England  collegian 
was  encouraged  to  take  walks  daily.  About 
1825  gymnasiums  began  to  be  provided,  work  in 
which  being  of  course  voluntary. 

But  from  their  English  ancestors  the  Ameri- 
can youth  had  inherited  not  only  an  inextin- 
guishable love  for  sport  but  also  the  capacity 
to  organize  effectively.  He  added  to  these 
qualities  an  intense  desire  to  win.  And  when 
about  the  middle  of  last  century  he  began  to  be 
somewhat  released  from  the  trammels  of  official 
restriction,  interest  in  intercollegiate  athletics 
grew  by  leaps  and  bounds.  There  were  many 
attempts  to  limit  it,  some  wise  and  some  not. 
It  is  still  recognized  as  being  subject  to  many 
excesses  and  bad  tendencies,  which  need  much 
curbing  and  legislation,  but  it  is  approached 
rather  on  the  side  of  sympathetic  direction  than 
of  repression.  Its  function  as  a  means  of  ex- 
ercise is  often  swallowed  up  in  the  more  exciting 
spectacle  of  watching  the  champion  team  trying 
to  win  a  game  over  a  beloved  rival.  In  a  college 
of  a  thousand  students,  by  this  means  a  few 


158  The  American  College 

score  procure  physical  training  as  proxies  for 
the  rest. 

Football  goes  back  for  hundreds  of  years  in 
English  history.  It  has  always  been  a  strenu- 
ous, sometimes  a  bloody  and  bone-breaking, 
game.  At  first  unorganized,  a  set  of  rules 
gradually  emerged,  and  in  England  these  have 
bifurcated  and  two  games,  Rugby  and  Asso- 
ciation, the  one  with  a  scrimmage,  the  other 
more  open,  have  been  developed.  The  Ameri-  | 
can  football  game,  as  played  in  the  fall  by 
nearly  all  American  colleges  for  men,  is  an 
evolution  of  the  Rugby  with  some  national 
characteristics  added.  It  does  not  lack  vigor 
or  vitality,  and  recent  changes  by  a  central  in- 
tercollegiate board  have  removed  some  of  the 
more  dangerous  features  and  greatly  civilized  it. 

President  Eliot  in  his  reports  made  very 
severe  attacks  upon  the  game.  It  contained 
** sources  of  grave  evils:  first,  the  immoderate 
desire  to  win  intercollegiate  games;  second,  the 
frequent  coUision  in  masses  which  makes  foul 
play  invisible;  third,  the  profit  from  violation 
of  the  rules;  fourth,  the  misleading  assimi- 
lation of  the  game  to  war  as  regards  its  strategy 
and  its  ethics.*'  There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
vigorous  blows  have  led  to  a  reduction  of  these 


Student  Life  159 

evils,  and  have  placed  some  of  them  in  a  manage- 
able condition,  though  they  are  not  by  any 
means  all  eliminated. 

Nothing  will  make  football  a  game  of  good 
collegiate  character  except  the  highest  standard 
of  sportsmanship  on  the  part  of  the  players, 
and  these  conditions  which  President  Eliot  has 
outlined  stand  in  the  way  of  creating  such  a 
standard.  The  intense  desire  to  win  makes  too 
many  students  indifferent  to  the  means.  The 
paid  coach,  who  is  usually  employed  by  the  foot- 
ball association  and  not  by  the  college,  finds  his 
future  to  depend  on  winning.  The  game  is 
something  of  a  melee  and  the  chances  of  damag- 
ing an  opponent  without  detection  are  great. 
Players  are  taught  how  to  disobey  the  rules 
when  the  officials  of  the  game  are  not  on  hand. 
Fellow  collegians  and  alumni  will  often  applaud 
a  piece  of  trickery  which  succeeds.  In  some 
colleges  the  absence  of  any  high  standard  is 
a  matter  of  notoriety. 

When  the  President  has  tried  to  interfere  it 
has  sometimes  been  a  question  whether  he  or 
the  coach,  who  may  have  as  large  a  salary,  is  the 
more  influential.  College  officials  are  not  always 
free  from  blame.  Besides  sympathizing  with 
their  students,  which  is  a  proper  feeling,  they 


i6o  The  American  College 

allow  their  intellectual  requirements  to  be 
varied  in  the  interest  of  athletics.  Great  foot- 
ball players  have  boasted  that  their  colleges 
could  not  afford  to  spare  them,  no  matter  how 
low  their  student  rank,  and  the  result  has  seemed 
to  justify  their  position. 

These  extreme  conditions  are  mending,  but 
there  remain  other  evils.  The  payment  of 
players,  usually  by  the  alumni,  sometimes 
from  the  great  funds  which  the  gate  receipts 
produce,  goes  on  in  various  veiled  ways,  so  that 
teams  have  been  sometimes  hired  gladiators. 
So  much  light  has  been  thrown  on  this  matter 
of  late  that  the  better  colleges  are  not  now  using 
their  scholarships  in  this  way.  But  it  is  nearly 
always  the  case  that  a  promising  school  athlete 
has  no  difficulty  in  reducing  his  college  expenses 
to  zero  or  better  by  shrewdly  taking  advantage 
of  competitive  oflFers. 

Other  counts  can  be  urged  against  these  foot- 
ball games — the  distraction  from  study  by  many 
in  the  college  lasting  for  days  or  weeks,  the 
betting,  the  celebrations,  often  resulting  in 
dissipation  after  the  game  is  over,  the  possibility 
of  serious  injury  which,  however,  is  less  than 
formerly. 

After    making    this    serious    catalogue    one 


Student  Life  i6i 

wonders  whether  anything  can  be  said  on  the 
other  side,  and  whether  the  verdict  should  not  be 
immediately  rendered  against  permitting  the 
game.  The  fact  that  only  one  college  of  first 
rank  (Columbia)  has  taken  this  position  seems 
to  indicate  some  belief  in  the  utility  of  the  inter- 
collegiate game  of  football  in  spite  of  its  in- 
herent evils. 

No  other  game  arouses  such  a  spirit  of  college 
unity  and  loyalty.  To  have  every  under- 
graduate excitedly  interested  in  the  success  of 
his  team  is  worth  something  for  the  rest  of 
the  year.  If  the  faculty  is  properly  sympa- 
thetic with  the  students  it  creates  a  feeUng 
among  the  elements  of  the  institutional  life 
which  makes  all  sorts  of  wholesome  influences 
possible.  The  game  itself  teaches  in  the  highest 
degree  the  sacrifice  of  self  to  the  general  cause. 
"The  strength  of  the  pack  is  the  wolf,  and  the 
strength  of  the  wolf  is  the  pack."  The  player 
who  strives  to  show  his  own  prowess  at  the 
expense  of  the  team  is  soon  cast  off.  It  teaches 
quick  decisions,  brave  actions,  and  subordina- 
tion to  authority.  On  the  whole,  it  inculcates 
not  only  in  the  players,  but  also  in  the  college  at 
large  the  importance  of  physical  fitness  and 
vigor  and  the  method  of  producing  them,  and  is 


i62  The  American  College 

a  strong  argument  against  weakening  sensual 
habits.  If  played  in  the  proper  spirit,  it  induces 
reciprocal  methods  in  an  opposing  team  and 
strengthens  character  by  resisting  temptation. 
There  are  colleges  which  even  a  rough  profes- 
sional team  will  not  take  advantage  of  for  very 
shame's  sake. 

A  few  more  years  of  vigorous  striving  for 
gentlemanly  sport,  without  partiality  and  with- 
out hypocrisy,  will  make  of  our  American  game 
a  strong  agency  for  good  in  college  life. 

Baseball  is  the  great  spring  game.  As  a  game 
it  possesses  many  advantages.  It  is  open,  fraud 
is  easily  detected,  it  is  active  while  it  lasts,  and 
can  be  completed  in  an  hour  or  two.  The  same 
spirit  of  professionalism  often  invades  it,  the 
same  improper  inducements  to  players,  and 
something  of  the  same  elements  of  betting  and 
rowdyism  as  in  football.  Some  colleges  permit 
long  tours  of  a  week  or  more  during  term  time, 
playing  each  day.  The  benefit  of  this  is  more 
than  questionable.  The  habit,  too,  of  **  rattling" 
the  players  by  remarks  on  the  side  lines  at  criti- 
cal moments  can  hardly  be  considered  sports- 
manlike. 

Track  and  field  athletics  constitute  the  third 
most  common  intercollegiate  event.     These  are 


Student  Life  163 

open  competitions  of  individual  strength  and 
agility  in  running,  jumping,  and  throwing  heavy 
weights,  each  event  being  independent  of  the 
others.  Team  work  is  reduced  to  a  minimum, 
but  severe  training  is  necessary  to  the  best  re- 
sults. 

The  American  Athletic  Association  is  en- 
deavoring to  cut  professionalism  out  of  com- 
petitive college  athletics.  It  is  very  easy  to 
rule  that  no  professional  shall  be  eligible,  but 
the  difficulty  consists,  first,  in  the  definition  of 
professional,  and,  secondly,  in  enforcing  the 
rule.  At  one  time  it  was  decided  that  any 
youth  who  had  ever  contended  for  a  money 
reward  should  be  forever  ineligible.  But  when 
a  small  boy  who  ran  a  race  with  a  fellow  for  a 
prize  in  a  private  contest  was  adjudged  to  be 
permanently  disqualified  for  any  college  ath- 
letics, the  folly  of  the  rule  became  evident. 
Now  there  is  a  contest  as  to  whether  a  man  who 
to  earn  money  plays  summer  baseball  should  be 
eligible,  and  the  association  has  decided  ad- 
versely. The  decision  is  said  to  be  evaded  by 
many  colleges.  Some  advocate  a  certain  high 
standing  in  class  as  the  only  necessary  con- 
dition of  eligibility,  and  this  would  certainly 
greatly  reduce  the  difficulty. 


164  The  American  College 

All  these  eligibility  rules  are  really  reflections 
on  the  honesty  and  good  faith  of  the  colleges. 
If  they  were  really  sincere  in  their  effort,  each 
one  to  keep  itself  perfectly  clean,  no  such  con- 
certed effort  would  be  necessary.  Each  one 
would  see  to  it  that  no  one  entered  as  a  student 
who  came  primarily  to  play  ball  and  who  did  not 
maintain  a  creditable  standing.  There  would 
be  no  payments,  open  or  secret,  to  athletes  as 
athletes,  and  if  a  college  practised  a  lower  stand- 
ard, the  refusal  to  treat  it  as  a  fair  competitor 
would  be  sufficient  penalty. 

There  are  a  number  of  minor  games  which  do 
not  usually  aspire  to  be  intercollegiate.  Asso- 
ciation football  (soccer)  has  many  merits  and  can 
be  played  through  the  winter  months.  Hockey 
is  a  popular  game  with  both  sexes.  Many  a 
student  finds  in  tennis  the  sort  of  exercise  and 
recreation  he  needs.  Golf  has  a  few  devotees. 
Cricket  is  a  college  game  around  Philadelphia, 
and  all  colleges  have  their  gymnasiums.    • 

The  effort  is  increasingly  made  to  have  every 
man  and  woman  interested  in  some  form  of 
physical  exercise.  This  is  more  important 
than  cultivating  the  powers  of  a  few  to  their 
highest  development.  The  college  which  can 
accomplish  this  result  will  establish  an  era  in 


Student  Life  165 

physical  education;  for  the  stress  of  modern 
business  and  the  professions  makes  it  highly 
important  that  every  man  as  he  leaves  college 
should  have  the  habit  and  the  spirit  of  sport 
well  ingrained  in  his  being.  It  is  well,  therefore, 
that  some  sport  which  can  be  continued  in  after 
life  should  be  taken  up  in  college.  If  one  gets 
to  feel  the  thrill  of  outdoor  exercise  he  will  find  it 
difficult  to  forget  it,  and  in  some  form,  golf, 
tennis,  fishing,  shooting,  camping,  the  leaven 
will  work.  To  create  this  and  to  build  a  good 
basis  of  health  are  the  great  objects  of  college 
athletics. 

There  is  lacking  the  element  of  enjoyment  in 
the  most  strenuous  college  games.  Very  few 
men  during  the  football  season  play  except  to 
aid  the  team  to  victory.  They  do  not  go  out 
in  the  field  and  form  impromptu  games  for 
pure  pleasure.  They  do  for  tennis  and  some  of 
the  so-called  ** minor  sports,"  but  play  is  now 
generally  such  serious  work  that  the  demands  of 
real  recreation  are  hardly  met  as  in  the  less- 
organized  and  more  spontaneous  sports  of  the 
past. 

College  journalism  is  another  extra-class 
activity  which  from  the  necessities  of  the  case 
embraces    but    a   small   number   of  students. 


i66  The  American  College 

While  one  detachment  suppHes  the  literary 
matter,  another  by  various  devices  persuades 
tradesmen  to  support  the  effort  financially  by 
their  advertisements.  They  probably  promise 
patronage  which  they  cannot  control,  and  hold 
out  inducements  which  are  never  realized. 
Like  many  another  journahstic  eflFort,  these  ad- 
vertisements sustain  the  paper  and  the  enter- 
prising student  secures  his  commission. 

The  practice  of  issuing  student  papers  began 
early  in  the  last  century.  At  first  the  contents 
were  literary  efforts  of  the  students  both  in 
prose  and  verse.  A  few  of  the  latter,  those  of 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  for  instance,  have 
achieved  some  permanent  fame.  The  literary 
magazine  still  exists,  cultivating  the  powers  of 
the  student  by  printing  serious  essays,  verse, 
and  short  stories.  Such  efforts  usually  appear 
monthly .  Of  recent  years  weekly,  and  in  some 
of  the  large  colleges  daily,  publications,  mainly 
of  news,  have  been  plentiful.  A  few  years  ago 
these  often  contained  much  advice  as  to  the  way 
the  officials  should  conduct  the  college,  coupled 
with  rather  ill-considered  faultfinding.  In 
such  cases  they  were  of  doubtful  benefit,  but 
of  late  the  spirit  of  loyalty,  existing  in  all  really 
honest  colleges,  and  a  greater  unity  of  feeling 


Student  Life  167 

between  officers  and  students  have  developed 
a  better  style  of  journalism,  and  our  best  stu- 
dent papers. are  creditable  and  helpful  records 
of  public  opinion  and  events. 

There  are  also  musical  and  dramatic  clubs, 
intercollegiate  debates  and  orations,  and  many 
minor  forms  of  activities  which  would  seem  to 
provide  all  necessary  outlet  for  student  in- 
itiation and  enterprise.  Many  colleges  have 
too  many.  If  the  numbers  are  small,  those 
students  with  considerable  executive  or  literary 
abihty  find  themselves  overcrowded  with  work 
which  does  not  count  toward  a  degree,  and 
studies  suffer.  Though  sometimes  educative 
in  a  sense,  outside  work  is  also  distractive  and 
scrappy  in  its  nature  and  often  needs  to  be 
curbed  by  faculty  action. 

The  class,  notwithstanding  the  invasion  of  its 
unity  by  the  elective  system  in  some  places, 
still  remains  the  most  potent  and  interesting 
organization  within  the  college.  Its  members 
enter  the  college  together,  submit  together  to 
the  same  process  of  adjustment  to  the  new  Hfe, 
feel  together  the  growing  sense  of  responsibility 
for  college  conditions  and  the  maintenance  of 
ancient  customs,  and  leave  with  a  warm  feeling 
of  affection  for  each  other  and  their  alma  mater. 


i68  The  American  College 

The  excuse  given  for  hazing  has  often  been 
that  it  creates  this  sentiment  of  class  loyalty 
and  fraternity.  It  is  also  assumed  that  it  brings 
the  self-important  boy  into  such  relations  with 
his  fellows  that  it  is  possible  comfortably  to  live 
with  him.  That  these  results  follow  it  would  be 
idle  to  deny.  That  they  could  not  be  brought 
about  by  decent  means  cannot  be  maintained. 
Indeed  since  hazing  has  been  abolished  at  the 
most  reputable  colleges  there  seems  to  be  no 
lack  of  class  fraternity  or  of  proper  freshmen 
modesty.  The  objections  to  the  custom  are 
that  it  is  Hkely  to  lapse  into  barbarity,  and  that 
it  is  even  worse  for  the  persecuting  sophomores 
than  for  the  persecuted  freshmen.  While  tricks 
on  unacclimated  freshmen  are  always  likely, 
hazing,  as  understood  a  score  of  years  ago,  has 
no  leg  to  stand  upon  and  is  sure  to  disappear. 
Already  its  existence  in  serious  forms  writes 
down  a  college  in  public  estimation. 

It  is  a  very  old  custom,  perhaps  a  survival  of 
the  EngHsh  fagging.  In  the  colonial  colleges  it 
was  an  organized  and  recognized  system.  The 
freshmen  were  required  to  go  on  errands  for  all 
the  older  classes  and  were  subjected  to  a  state 
almost  of  servility.  When  the  officials  of  the 
colleges   abolished   the   rules  the    sophomores 


Student  Life  169 

remade  them,  and  tradition  exaggerated  them. 
Had  they  remained  in  charge  of  the  senior  class, 
many  of  their  evils  would  have  disappeared. 
But  in  the  hands  of  irresponsible  youths  only 
one  year  older  than  their  victims,  the  custom 
degenerated  into  rebeUious  abuse  by  a  group  of 
sophomores,  with  or  without  cause,  of  individ- 
ual freshmen.  The  "rushes"  and  other  open- 
class  contests,  however  objectionable  from  other 
points  of  view,  can  hardly  be  considered  haz- 
ing. 

These  voluntary  student  efforts  constitute  no 
small  part  of  the  valuable  training  which  college 
life  brings.  The  college  is  a  world  in  minia- 
ture. Especially  the  dormitory  college  de- 
velops the  qualities  which  the  successful  man 
needs.  Our  youth  fresh  from  the  restrictions 
and  triumphs  of  school,  or  from  the  guarded 
care  of  home,  finds  himself  launched  upon  new 
conditions  with  Hberties  to  which  he  has  been 
unused  and  with  problems  which  he  has  never 
attempted  to  solve.  He  tries  the  experiment 
of  housekeeping  either  alone  or  with  one  com- 
panion, with  other  experiments  of  similar 
character  going  on  around  him.  He  must 
learn  the  valuable  art  of  getting  along  with  his 
fellows  or  suffer.     He  is  plunged  immediately 


170  The  American  College 

into  the  politics  of  his  class.  The  President 
and  other  officers  are  to  be  elected.  The  choice 
often  falls  upon  some  important  looking  member 
whose  scholastic  or  athletic  reputation  has  pre- 
ceded him.  In  a  little  time  he  may  find  that  this 
reputation  is  illusory,  and  that  the  quahties  of 
real  leadership  reside  with  some  modest  boy 
hitherto  unknown.  This  is  but  the  beginning  of 
the  poHtical  career  upon  which  he  is  entering. 
As  he  advances  from  one  grade  to  another 
many  matters  have  to  be  decided.  His  vote  is 
solicited  in  many  directions,  for  or  against 
new  issues  connected  with  hazing,  with  faculty 
relations  individually  or  as  a  whole,  with  re- 
lations 'to  bad  tendencies  growing  up  in  the 
student  body,  with  athletic  questions  collegiate 
and  intercollegiate,  with  the  problems  of  self- 
government,  with  problems  of  the  dormitory  or 
dining-hall.  He  may  decide  either  because  of 
greater  interest  in  his  regular  studies  or  because 
he  is  not  an  inbred  politician  to  take  no  part  in 
these  matters,  and  to  go  on  his  quiet  way  without 
responsibility.  If  so,  he  is  following  the  ex- 
ample of  hundreds  of  his  seniors  in  the  larger 
world  of  politics  outside  the  college.  But  more 
likely  he  takes  a  place  as  follower,  or,  if  the 
qualities  develop,  as  leader.    He  may  become 


Student  Life  171 

intensely  interested  in  carrying  through  his 
plans.  He  finds  how  best  to  win  adherents, 
what  arguments  appeal,  how  much  and  what 
kind  of  a  demagogue  he  must  be  to  succeed. 
He  takes  office  when  he  has  the  chance,  and  the 
problems  become  more  real  and  definite.  He 
is  conscious  when  he  is  through  college  that  the 
whole  process  has  brought  to  light  and  efficiency 
certain  qualities,  not  scholastic,  which  will  be 
a  great  aid  to  him  when  adapted  to  the  questions 
of  after  Hfe. 

Besides,  he  has  formed  friendships.  Four 
years  of  such  intimacy,  especially  with  his  own 
class  in  a  small  college,  has  created  relations 
such  as  are  rarely  formed  outside  one's  own 
family.  He  knows  his  felfows,  their  strength 
and  weaknesses,  as  it  is  given  few  others  to 
know.  He  learns  to  appreciate  the  qualities 
that  are  solid,  has  no  mercy  for  show  or  boast- 
fulness,  and  selects  a  few  men  that  he  wishes  to 
stand  by  through  life.  Confidences  are  ex- 
changed which  are  held  sacred,  and  when  the 
end  of  it  comes  at  commencement  there  is,  with 
something  of  a  sense  of  triumph  at  being  enrolled 
as  a  graduate,  a  very  real  sadness  when  the 
cessation  of  these  close  intimacies  is  looked 
forward  to.     But  the  friendships  do  not  all  end 


172  The  American  College 

with  graduation.  "He  was  in  my  class  at 
college''  is  the  all-sufficient  explanation  for  the 
very  near  relations  which  two  men  often  feel 
when  their  ways  have  greatly  diverged  in  their 
professions  or  business. 

One  hears  many  instances  of  the  utihty  of 
these  college  relationships.  A  man  found  a  mem- 
ber of  his  class  in  desperate  financial  straits  in 
a  mining  camp  in  the  far  West.  A  telegram 
to  the  class  secretary  relieved  the  situation. 
Another  was  about  to  lose  a  situation  due  to 
false  charges  against  him  which  he  could  not 
explain.  His  class  had  sufficient  influence  to 
clear  up  the  question.  For  another  honest  but 
financially  inefficient  man  was  found  a  busi- 
ness suited  to  his  needs.  Others  have  been 
tided  through  the  stress  of  business  emergencies. 
Many  have  been  estabhshed  socially  by  class- 
mates, and  not  a  few  have  found  wives  or  hus- 
bands following  college  acquaintanceship. 

Thus  sentiment  and  interest  alike  cause  most 
men  and  women  to  look  back  to  college  days  as 
the  most  happy  and  the  most  profitable  of  their 
Hves.  Those  who  will  confess  a  regret  that  they 
have  been  to  college  are  very  few,  and  usually 
speak  their  own  condemnation. 

But  these  by-products  come  not  always  by 


Student  Life  173 

direct  seeking.  They  come  most  often  without 
premeditation,  as  the  result  of  living  out  a  true 
and  honest  Hfe  in  the  daily  performance  of  duty, 
duty  to  studies,  to  classmates,  to  officers,  to  the 
college. 

The  boy  who  secures  them  enters  as  a  modest 
freshman,  keeping  himself  in  the  background, 
but  wilHng  to  take  his  share  in  the  doing  and 
suffering  belonging  to  his  position.  He  re- 
spects the  customs  which  tradition  has  enacted 
as  proper  for  his  observance.  He  studies  hard 
and  regularly.  He  plays  the  games  as  best  he 
can,  and  when  he  cannot  play  he  cheers  on 
college  players.  As  soon  as  possible  he  strives 
to  make  himself  a  loyal  collegian,  faithful  to  the 
best  type  he  sees  around  him.  He  keeps  him- 
self out  of  drinking  and  dissipation,  and  has  a 
conscience  to  do  his  duty  and  resist  temptation. 

As  he  gets  older  he  takes  without  seeking 
responsibihty.  When  offices  come  to  him  he 
accepts  them.  He  helps  a  fellow  that  is  going 
astray,  and  when  evil  tendencies  seem  to  be 
getting  a  foothold  he  does  not  pass  by  on  the 
other  side.  He  stands  out  against  them  and 
risks  his  popularity,  though  he  may  not  know 
that,  if  he  is  wise,  not  only  popularity  but  re- 
spect will  come  to  him  afterward.     He  finds 


174  The  American  College 

among  his  instructors  men  whose  advice  and  aid 
he  needs  and  is  not  afraid  to  seek  them.  He 
finds  among  his  fellows  quahties  which  he  can 
trust  and  to  these  gives  of  his  best.  Growing 
all  the  time  in  morals,  scholarship,  and  influence, 
taking  a  part,  and  a  wise  and  strong  part,  in  every 
college  movement  for  which  he  is  fitted,  enjoy- 
ing all  that  is  best  in  college  sports  and  asso- 
ciations, he  comes  to  his  graduation  day  a  manly, 
loyal,  sensible  supporter  of  his  college  and  its 
members,  with  a  store  of  mental  and  social 
training  which  will  always  serve  him  well. 


CHAPTER    V 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

There  are  in  the  United  States  about  i,ocx) 
institutions  calling  themselves  universities  or 
colleges.  Many  of  these  are  trifling  affairs 
with  no  serious  claim  to  either  title.  In  191 3 
the  Commissioner  of  Education  in  Washington 
reported  596  corporations  from  which  he  re- 
ceived reports.  This  list  doubtless  is  large 
enough,  for  he  excluded  only  those  which  had 
fewer  than  twenty  students  of  college  grade,  and 
not  all  of  these,  for  about  thirty  of  this  sort 
previously  listed  are  retained.  He  also  ex- 
cluded those  not  authorized  to  give  degrees, 
those  without  definite  standards  of  admission, 
those  giving  less  than  two  years  of  college  work. 
The  lack  of  the  significance  of  the  term  College 
or  University  is  shown  by  the  faCt  that  a  number 
of  "universities**  have  been  transferred  to  the 
list  of  secondary  schools. 

A  still  further   reduction  in   the   number  is 
made  in  a  pamphlet  issued  by  the  Commissioner 

^7S 


176  The  American  College 

in  191 1  classifying  the  colleges  and  universities 
with  reference  to  the  value  of  their  Ao  B.  de- 
grees. Here  340  institutions  are  listed.  Of 
these,  50  belong  to  Class  I,  which  stands  for 
those  whose  graduates  are  accepted  in  first- 
class  universities  in  full  standing  for  the  degree 
of  Master  of  Arts  in  one  year;  about  160  to 
Class  II,  whose  graduates  must  take  some 
additional  work  to  qualify  them  for  this  stand- 
ing; 84  of  Class  III,  which  are  one  year  behind 
Class  I;  and  40  to  Class  IV,  which  are  two  years 
behind.  Omitting  Class  IV,  we  may  assume 
that  there  are  about  300  institutions  calling 
themselves  variously  Colleges  and  Universities 
which  are  doing  creditable  collegiate  work.  In 
Class  I,  30  of  the  50  are  the  large  universites, 
endowed  or  state,  leaving  but  20  colleges  proper 
in  the  list. 

The  Carnegie  Foundation,  in  conjunction 
with  the  Association  of  American  Universities, 
has  had  drawn  up  for  the  information  of  the 
German  Government  a  list  of  colleges  whose 
degrees  are  recommended  as  the  practical 
equivalent  of  the  bachelor's  degree  of  the  higher 
universities  of  the  country,  and  will  be  accepted 
as  such  in  Germany  as  a  basis  for  university 
work.     The  list  includes  118  names. 


The  Function  of  the  College  177 

The  U.  S.  Commissioner  has  suggested  that  of 
the  596  colleges  reporting  to  him  about  250 
would  be  better  as  "Junior  Colleges" — that  is, 
as  colleges  carrying  their  students  only  through 
the  sophomore  year  and  then  encouraging  their 
transfer  to  a  university  of  large  resources. 
"The  universities,"  he  says,  "are  overcrowded 
with  young  men  and  women,  many  of  them 
boys  and  girls,  unable  to  do  satisfactory  work 
under  the  conditions  which  they  find.  They 
are  taught  by  instructors  and  assistants  of  less 
ability  and  experience  than  those  who  instruct 
the  higher  classes.  Many  lose  their  inspiration, 
become  discouraged,  and  quit.  The  records 
show  that  about  60  per  cent,  of  those  who  enter 
the  freshman  class  fall  out  before  the  beginning 
of  the  junior  year." 

The  suggestion  is  therefore  based  on  the  two 
ideas  that  the  small  college  is  the  best  place  for 
immature  youth,  and  that  the  first  years  in  the 
university  are  often  poorly  taught.  There  is 
truth  in  both  of  these  statements,  but  there  is 
no  power  to  require  the  small  colleges  to  cut  off 
their  upper  years,  and  very  few  will  do  it  volun- 
tarily. 

In  191 3  there  were  in  the  collegiate  depart- 
ments of  the  596  institutions  recognized  by  the 


178  The  American  College 

Commissioner  about  200,000  students.  The  in- 
come of  these  institutions,  including  all  depart- 
ments, from  tuition  fees  amounted  to  about 
$20,000,000,  from  productive  funds,  $ 1 6,500,000, 
from  United  States,  state  or  city  appropria- 
tions, $30,000,000,  from  private  benefactions, 
$24,000,000;  in  all,  $109,590,855.  They  had 
in  their  libraries  17,000,000  volumes  worth 
over  $25,000,000,  and  their  productive  funds 
aggregated  nearly  $400,000,000.  These  figures 
inadequately  show  the  large  proportions  which 
higher  education  has  assumed  in  the  life  of  the 
nation.     But  how  inchoate  is  its  condition! 

The  colonial  colleges  and  state  institutions 
have  developed  into  universities  with  many 
departments.  Their  colleges  do  not  differ  in 
rank  from  the  detached  colleges,  though  they 
often  have  more  variety  in  their  courses  of 
study.  Their  student  life  is  subjected  to  no 
restrictions  or  limitations  which  do  not  apply  to 
students  of  the  other  departments,  and  the 
spirit  is  that  of  the  university  rather  than  of  the 
college.  The  typical  American  college  is  one 
where  from  100  to  500  students  meet  together 
without  preparatory,  graduate,  or  professional 
departments,  to  pursue  the  four  years'  course 
leading  to  the  bachelor's  degree.     Its  purpose 


The  Function  of  the  College  179 

is  cultural  and  disciplinary  rather  than  techni- 
cal, and  it  interests  itself  in  the  moral  and  social 
development  of  its  students  as  well  as  their  in- 
tellectual. It  is  usually  more  or  less  loosely 
associated  with  some  religious  denomination, 
though  this  is  weakening  with  the  years,  and  it 
willingly  admits  among  its  influences  direct 
teaching  of  Christian  morals  and  spirit. 

Of  the  596  institutions  recognized  by  the 
Bureau  of  Education,  74  are  underthe  control  of 
the  states;  144  classify  themselves  as  non-sec- 
tarian; 56  are  under  the  management  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church;  and  the  remainder,  a 
little  over  300,  are  affiliated  with  the  vari- 
ous Protestant  denominations.  Some  of  those 
now  mentioned  as  non-sectarian  have  a  church 
connection,  though  not  of  such  an  organic 
nature  as  to  disqualify  them  from  being  recipi- 
ents of  the  bounty  of  the  Carnegie  Founda- 
tion. It  will  thus  be  seen  how  important  is 
the  influence  and  serious  the  responsibility  of 
the  Christian  Church  for  higher  education  in 
America.  The  above  figures  considered  alone 
would,  however,  seem  to  exaggerate  this  feature, 
for  the  most  of  the  larger  universities  of  the 
country  are  either  state  or  non-sectarian  in- 
stitutions. 


i8o  The  American  College 

Andrew  D.  White  gives  in  his  "Autobiog- 
raphy" interesting  ghmpses  of  college  Hfe 
about  the  year  1850.  He  was  sent  first  to  a 
small  college.  "Of  discipline  there  was  none; 
there  were  about  forty  students,  the  majority  of 
them  sons  of  wealthy  churchmen,  showing  no 
inclination  to  work  and  much  tendency  to  dissi- 
pation. Only  about  a  dozen  of  our  number 
studied  at  all/'  The  college  could  not  aflPord  to 
expel  any  one  on  account  of  its  small  endow- 
ment and  need  of  patronage,  and  the  students 
took  advantage  of  the  situation.  He  gives 
accounts  of  how  they  jeered  the  President, 
worried  the  professors,  hazed  the  freshmen,  and 
engaged  in  the  general  "roystering"  not  un- 
common among  college  youths  of  that  day. 
At  the  end  of  one  year  he  decided  he  could 
better  his  condition  elsewhere. 

This  picture  is  probably  not  an  unusual  one 
of  other  small  colleges  at  certain  periods  of 
their  development.  Every  student  counted  one 
in  the  catalogue,  and  his  fees  were  an  appreciable 
part  of  the  revenue  of  the  college.  His  friends 
were  urgent  and  influential,  and  the  poor  officers 
worried  along  through  the  year  hoping  for  a  turn 
of  the  tide.  Woe  to  the  tactless  man  in  such  a 
place !    He  makes  a  Httle  error  and  all  the  vials 


The  Function  of  the  College  i8i 

of  the  unrestrained  wrath  of  unreasoning  youth 
who  do  not  wish  to  make  any  allowances  are 
turned  upon  him.  No  effective  discipline  is 
possible.  Freed  from  the  danger  of  being 
"dropped,"  study  is  a  matter  of  choice,  and  all 
neutral  boys  naturally  gravitate  to  the  side  of 
disorder  and  waste  of  time.  Teachers  of  high 
grade  shun  such  a  place,  and  there  are  many 
changes.  The  unwisdom  of  starting  colleges 
with  insufficient  endowment,  and  the  positive 
harm  done  to  many  of  their  students,  are  not 
Hkely  to  be  overemphasized. 

Andrew  D.  White  then  went  to  Yale.  Here 
he  found  better  conditions.  "The  discipline, 
though  at  times  harsh,  was  on  the  whole  just. 
But  as  to  the  education  given,  never  was  a  man 
more  disappointed  at  first."  The  teachers  in 
the  lower  classes  were  divinity  students  with- 
out experience  and  with  no  intention  of  con- 
tinuingin  the  profession.  They  "heard  lessons" 
without  explanation  or  advice.  There  was  no 
stimulus  to  work  for  other  rewards  than  marks. 

In  the  junior  year  it  was  better,  and  when 
the  influence  of  the  personality  of  such  men  as 
President  Woolsey  and  Professor  Porter  was 
brought  to  bear  on  the  students,  in  such  sub- 
jects as  history  and  philosophy  in  the  last  year, 


1 82  The  American  College 

some  real  scholarship  was  developed,  though 
even  here,  to  recite  the  words  of  the  text-book, 
was  often  the  extent  of  the  demand  upon  them. 

The  same  faults,  though  in  a  much  reduced 
degree,  exist  in  many  of  the  larger  universities 
of  to-day  in  connection  with  their  undergradu- 
ate instruction.  The  great  names  which  excite 
the  enthusiasm  of  boys  with  intellectual  am- 
bitions when  seen  in  the  catalogue  are  not 
usually  available  for  their  use  until  they  reach 
the  advanced  stages  of  some  specialty.  The 
real  instruction  to  freshmen  is  often  given  by 
young  men,  recently  graduated,  who  know  but 
little  of  the  technique  of  teaching  and  have 
only  a  store  of  recently  acquired  knowledge  to 
communicate.  They  are  men  oftentimes  who 
would  not  be  employed  in  the  best  schools  or 
the  best  small  colleges.  When  a  small  college 
has  great  men  in  its  faculty  their  influence  is 
vastly  more  pervasive. 

Henry  Cabot  Lodge  gives  his  impressions  of 
Harvard  about  twenty  years  later.  His  college 
life,  1867-71,  covered  the  end  of  President  Hill's 
administration  and  the  beginning  of  President 
Eliot's.  It  was  therefore  a  time  of  revolution. 
**I  entered  the  college,  which  had  remained  in 
essence  unchanged  from  the  days  of  its  Puritan 


The  Function  of  the  College  183 

founders  .  .  .  the  college  with  the  narrow 
classical  curriculum  of  its  English  exemplars, 
and  I  came  out  a  graduate  of  a  modern  uni- 
versity." It  would  now  be  called  almost  a 
small  college.  His  own  class,  the  largest  up  to 
that  date  and  for  several  years  following,  num- 
bered 156.  His  judgment  on  the  new  system 
of  electives  is  not  altogether  favorable :  "  Under 
the  old  compulsory  system  a  certain  amount  of 
knowledge  no  more  useless  than  any  other  and  a 
still  larger  amount  of  discipline  in  learning  were 
forced  upon  all  alike.  Under  the  new  system  it 
was  possible  to  escape  without  learning  any- 
thing at  all  by  a  judicious  system  of  unrelated 
studies  in  subjects  taken  up  only  because  they 
were  easy  or  the  burden  imposed  by  those  who 
taught  them  was  Hght." 

His  mental  faculties  were  really  awakened  in 
his  senior  year  by  a  course  in  history  under 
Henry  Adams.  He  regrets  that  he  was  not 
required  to  continue  his  Greek,  which  might 
have  been  a  source  of  pleasure  to  him  in  after 
years  had  he  known  enough  of  it.  His  greatest 
gain,  however,  was  from  the  friendships  formed, 
and  from  the  voluntary  activities,  intellectual 
and  athletic,  social  and  dramatic,  in  which  he 
was  engaged.     Unlike  most  students  who  have 


184  The  American  College 

wasted  their  opportunities  at  college,  he  seems 
to  have  little  regret,  and  speaks  of  it  with  care- 
less indifference.  As,  however,  he  never  had 
any  conditions,  and  graduated  above  the  middle 
of  his  class,  his  neglect  may  have  been  some- 
what exaggerated  in  his  own  narrative:  **I 
achieved  one  main  purpose  of  a  liberal  education 
— a  respect  for  the  work  of  other  men  in  other 
fields  of  which  I  knew  nothing.  ...  I 
was  imbued  with  a  realizing  sense  of  my  own 
abounding  ignorance,  which  is  the  first  rung  of 
the  ladder  of  learning  and  the  best  education 
that  any  college  or  university  can  give." 

These  criticisms  on  college  conditions,  made 
nearly  a  half  century  after  graduation,  and 
when  a  life  experience  in  large  public  labors 
had  removed  sentiment  and  clarified  judg- 
ment, may  be  accepted  as  fair  and  trustworthy. 
That  much  harm  is  done  by  admitting  and  re- 
taining unfit  students  for  the  sake  of  numbers, 
that  there  is  a  great  weakness  in  the  teaching 
abilities  of  many  members  of  the  faculties  of 
the  universities,  that  unrestricted  election  opens 
the  way  for  weak  scholarship  and  low  motives, 
are  well  recognized.  The  institutions  men- 
tioned have  in  themselves  partly  remedied  these 
abuses,  but  they  exist,  if  not  in  them  to  the  ex- 


i 


The  Function  of  the  College  185 

tent  they  did  50  years  ago,  to  some  extent  else- 
where. 

The  primary  purpose  of  the  colleges  may  be 
said  to  be  to  furnish  a  liberal  education.  There 
may  be  difficulty  in  defining  accurately  this 
term,  but  in  general  we  understand  what  it 
means.  Whether  we  accept  the  definition  of 
Professor  Huxley:  "That  man,  I  think,  has  had 
a  liberal  education  who  has  been  so  trained  in 
youth  that  his  body  is  the  ready  servant  of  his 
will  and  does  with  ease  and  pleasure  all  the 
work  that  as  a  mechanism  it  is  capable  of; 
whose  intellect  is  a  clear,  cold  logic  engine  with 
all  its  parts  of  equal  strength  and  in  smooth 
working  order;  ready,  like  a  steam  engine,  to  be 
turned  to  any  kind  of  work,  and  spin  the  gossa- 
mers as  well  as  forge  the  anchors  of  the  mind; 
whose  mind  is  stored  with  the  great  and  funda- 
mental truths  of  nature  and  the  laws  of  her 
operations;  one  who,no  stunted  ascetic,  is  full  of 
life  and  fire  but  whose  passions  are  trained  to 
come  to  heel  by  a  vigorous  will,  the  servant  of  a 
tender  conscience;  who  has  learned  to  love  all 
beauty,  to  hate  all  vileness,  and  to  respect  others 
as  himself";  or  the  simpler  one  of  Matthew 
Arnold  that  its  aim  is  "to  enable  a  man  to  know 
himself  and  the  world,"  the  meaning  and  appli- 


1 86  The  American  College 

cation  are  reasonably  clear.  It  is  true  that 
there  is  a  tendency,  probably  growing,  to  add 
technical  courses  even  in  the  smaller  colleges. 
It  is  also  true  that  the  liberal  courses  in  most 
colleges  would  not  have  been  called  liberal  a 
half  century  ago.  The  old  studies  which  seemed 
to  our  fathers  essential  for  this  purpose  have 
been  partly  crowded  out  by  new  knowledge  and 
new  methods  once  deemed  PhiHstine.  And  yet 
the  hope  of  higher  learning  of  a  broad  and  cul- 
tural sort  rests  with  the  colleges  and  nowhere 
else,  and  the  more  closely  they  satisfy  this  hope 
the  more  sure  they  will  be  to  perform  a  benefi- 
cent work  for  the  nation. 

The  first  half  of  the  college  course  may  be  said 
to  belong  to  the  field  of  secondary  education. 
It  is  so  classified  in  Europe.  Secondary  edu- 
cation which  has  for  its  object  to  prepare  for 
higher  scholarship  ought  not  to  be  exclusively 
or  largely  technical.  It  must  furnish  a  broad 
foundation  for  the  more  specialized  erudition  to 
follow.  The  last  half  is  university  work,  the 
making  of  real  scholars. 

This  division  is  a  peculiarly  American  arrange- 
ment. Nowhere  else  do  we  find  these  functions 
combined  in  a  closely  related  manner  in  one 
institution.     The  youth  may  be  gently  led  from 


The  Function  of  the  College  187 

one  into  the  other  by  increasing  his  personal 
Hberties  of  choice  as  to  conduct  and  studies,  and 
by  an  adaptation  of  methods  to  his  developing 
powers.  Wisely  done,  with  none  of  the  break 
which  comes  to  a  boy  when  he  passes  from  the 
German  gymnasium  to  the  university,  there  is  a 
chance  to  create  that  product  most  needed  in 
America,  the  pubHc-spirited  scholar,  the  broad- 
minded  and  welcome  leader  of  a  democracy 

In  many  coeducational  institutions  in  the 
Western  States  it  is  the  women  who  are  most 
true  to  this  ideal.  The  men  take  technical 
courses  and  specialize  early.  The  work  in 
EngHsh,  history,  philosophy,  and  language  is 
largely  appropriated  by  the  sex  whose  early 
earning  capacity  is  less.  It  is  also  true  in  many 
high  schools  that  the  boys  drop  out  during  the 
years  to  find  money-making  occupations,  while 
the  girls  stay  and  complete  the  course.  If 
these  tendencies  increase,  it  will  not  be  many 
years  before  the  general  scholarship  of  the 
country,  with  the  exception  of  a  comparatively 
small  number  of  highly  educated  men,  will  be  in 
the  brains  of  the  women. 

The  education  of  women  has  taken  tremen- 
dous strides  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century. 
Of  the  596  institutions  reporting  at  Washington, 


1 

A 


1 88  The  American  College 

109  were  for  women  alone,  143  for  men  alone, 
and  the  remainder  were  coeducational. 

In  191 3  there  were  in  the  collegiate  depart- 
ments of  all  the  universities,  colleges,  and  tech- 
nological schools  of  the  United  States  128,644 
men  and  73,587  women,  and  the  proportion  of 
the  latter  is  rapidly  increasing.  As  the  schools 
of  technology  are  made  up  mostly  of  men,  the 
numbers  in  the  liberal  courses  are  not  far  from 
equal.  The  separate  institutions  for  women, 
mostly  in  the  East,  are  overcrowded  with  appli- 
cants. Colleges  like  Wellesley,  Mt.  Holyoke, 
Smith,  Vassar,  and  Bryn  Mawr,  which  main- 
tain a  high  standard,  find  their  greatest  problem 
to  be  to  limit  their  numbers  and  provide  for  the 
best  of  the  applicants,  and  such  colleges  are 
strictly  liberal  rather  than  vocational  in  their 
intentions.  Another  class  of  colleges  of  equal 
standing  are  attached  to,  but  separate  from,  the 
large  Eastern  universities,  as  Radcliffe  at  Har- 
vard and  Barnard  at  Columbia. 

But  the  great  numbers  of  women  are  receiv- 
ing their  higher  education  in  the  coeducational 
colleges  and  universities  principally  west  of  the 
Allegheny  Mountains.  Thus  the  University  of 
Michigan  is  recently  reported  to  have  2,712 
men  and  733  women  in  its  collegiate  depart- 


The  Function  of  the  College  189 

ment;  in  Wisconsin  the  numbers  were  2,533 
and  966;  in  Washington,  932  and  976;  in 
Texas,  876  and  614;  in  Oregon,  360  and  296;  in 
Nebraska,  1,274  and  1,179;  i^  Minnesota,  1,441 
and  1,304;  in  Kansas,  995  and  553;  in  Caljt^- 
fornia,  2,539  and  1,573;  in  Chicago  University, 
1,555  ^"^  2,004. 

These  figures  may  be  considered  to  be  typical 
of  Western  institutions.  While  in  the  aggregate 
the  men  outnumber  the  women,  in  the  non- 
technical courses  the  majority  is  the  other  way. 
A  professor  of  English  literature  in  a  Western 
state  university  has  reported  that  the  women 
so  filled  his  room  that  the  few  men  who  desired 
to  attend  were  too  timid  to  venture,  and  that 
the  only  way  to  give  them  his  instruction  was  to 
appoint  a  late  hour  in  the  evening  when  the  regu- 
lations required  the  women  to  remain  in  the 
dormitories. 

Somewhat  similar  conditions  exist  in  the 
smaller  detached  colleges  of  the  West.  Co- 
education is  practically  universal,  and  the 
women  maintain  their  standing  in  numbers 
and  quality  of  scholarship.  In  the  graduate 
schools  of  our  universities  the  men  are  in  ex- 
cess, and  the  highest  ranks  of  scholars  include 
but  a  small  proportion  of  women;   thus  there 


190  The  American  College 

were  in  191 3  in  the  whole  country  as  resident 
graduates  8,264  men  and  3,820  women.  In 
productive  scholarship  after  college  days  the 
men  lead  by  a  still  larger  margin.  Hence,  look- 
ing at  education  in  its  broadest  sense,  apart 
from  technical  and  professional  training,  there 
are  probably  in  the  country  a  larger  number  of 
poorly  educated  men  than  women,  a  larger 
number  of  highly  educated  men  than  women, 
but  in  the  ranks  of  those  who  have  a  reasonably 
high  and  good  general  education  a  continually 
growing  proportion  of  women  to  men,  possibly 
now  amounting  to  equality  or  more. 

The  advocates  of  the  old-fashioned  courses 
have  had  to  yield  much  in  recent  years.  It  is 
now  largely  conceded,  though  not  universally, 
that  Greek  and  Latin  are  not  essential  to  a 
liberal  education  as  above  defined,  and  the  in- 
sistence on  these  studies  as  a  necessary  part  of 
the  course  for  the  Bachelor  of  Arts  degree  has 
partly  passed  away.  Some  good  universities 
will  give  it  without  either,  many  with  Latin 
only.  The  improvement  in  the  teaching  in 
modern  languages  has  seemed  to  make  it  possi- 
ble to  produce  somewhat  of  the  same  qualities 
in  the  minds  of  students  that  the  ancient 
languages  gave,  while  their  increased  value  for 


The  Function  of  the  College  191 

use  in  after  life  has  made  them  desirable.  Many 
classicists  have  yielded  this  much  in  response  to 
public  demand,  but  to  ask  them  to  give  up 
wholly  to  the  vocationalists,  and  to  assume  that 
all  subjects  are  of  equal  value  for  a  liberal  edu- 
cation is  too  much  to  expect. 

Even  among  the  technical  men  the  broadest 
minded  would  not  claim  this.  The  chief  en- 
gineer of  one  of  our  great  industrial  plants  has 
recently  criticised  severely  the  graduates  of  the 
highly  specialized  schools  because  they  do  not 
know  enough  English  to  write  a  good  business 
letter,  or  of  economics  to  deal  with  the  labor 
problems  sure  to  arise,  while  their  lack  of 
general  education  which  shows  in  their  daily 
intercourse  makes  them  less  efficient  as  sales- 
men or  men  of  the  world.  Presidents  of  schools 
of  technology  have  lamented  the  same  fact  but 
excused  themselves  on  the  ground  that  each 
professor  of  a  specialty  demanded  so  much  time 
for  his  ever-developing  subject  that  the  non- 
specialties  were  crowded  out. 

If,  therefore,  we  are  not  to  have  a  nation  of 
men,  each  one  devoted  to  one  subject  and  not 
capable  of  taking  a  general  view  of  the  prob- 
lems of  life,  and  if  education  is  not  to  be  only  a 
preparation  for  making  a  Hving,  the  remedy 


192  The  American  College 

must  lie  very  largely  in  the  hands  of  the  col- 
leges. The  gospel  of  broad  thinking  and  of  high 
motives  other  than  mercenary  must  be  kept  to 
the  front,  and  the  studies  which  most  tend  to 
the  furtherance  of  this  gospel  must  maintain  a 
large  place  in  the  course.  The  teachers  must  be 
men  whose  scholarship  and  character  recom- 
mend such  standards  to  their  students,  and  the 
college  must  be  permeated  with  customs  which 
make  general  culture  of  mind  and  spirit  an  ideal 
worthy  and  possible  of  attainment. 

"Steeped  in  sentiment  as  she  Hes,  spreading 
her  gardens  to  the  moonlight,  and  whispering 
from  her  towers  the  last  enchantment  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  who  will  deny  that  Oxford,  by  her 
ineffable  charm,  keeps  ever  calling  us  nearer  to 
the  true  goal  of  all  of  us,  to  the  ideal,  to  per- 
fection, to  beauty,  in  a  word,  which  is  only 
truth  seen  from  another  side.^"* 

**  Glorious  to  most  are  the  days  of  life  in  a 
great  school,  but  it  is  at  college  that  inspiring 
talent  first  enters  on  its  inheritance."! 

These  sentimental  considerations  will  have 
small  acceptance  in  many  corners  of  our 
triumphant    democracy,    but    they    express    a 

*  Matthew  Arnold. 

tjohn  Morley,  "Life  of  Gladstone/'  Vol,  i,  p.  48. 


I 


The  Function  of  the  College  193 

worthy  and  continuing  feeling  which  is  now 
more  closely  associated  with  our  colleges  than 
elsewhere.  The  thoughts  of  ancient,  medieval, 
and  later  times,  the  thoughts  which  belong  to 
humanity  of  all  ages,  have  been  and  are  kept 
vital  by  the  universities  and  colleges  of  every 
land.  Bologna,  Paris,  and  Oxford  insured 
their  endurance  through  the  otherwise  Dark 
Ages  of  Europe.  In  the  dawn  of  all  things  in 
our  colonies,  when  the  stress  of  frontier  living 
seemed  likely  to  crowd  out  all  else,  Harvard 
and  William  and  Mary  and  Yale  kept  alive 
classical  culture  and  historical  sentiment  among 
the  commonwealth  builders,  continuing  the  in- 
tellectual ideals  of  the  past  amid  the  inau- 
spicious surroundings. 

Dangers  of  another  sort  now  beset  this 
scholarly  life.  Materialism  and  democracy 
have  joined  hands  and  are  building  a  civili- 
zation which  takes  small  account  and  seems  to 
have  small  need  of  anything  which  has  pre- 
ceded it. 

This  civilization  has  produced  most  benefi- 
cent results  in  making  Hfe  worth  while.  It  has 
cured  many  of  the  ills  which  itself  has  created. 
It  has  ministered  to  the  industrial  growth, 
which  has  so  much  to  do  with  all  our  comforts 


194  The  American  College 

and  utilities,  and  now  it  is  proceeding  to  solve 
the  problems  of  great  cities  and  poor  conditions 
of  living  produced  by  its  own  exigencies.  It 
has  reacted  upon  the  intellectual  life  of  the 
schools  and  has  built  up  institutions  which  rival 
in  numbers  and  excel  in  equipment  the  colleges 
which  profess  to  have  received  the  torch  of 
learning  from  the  universities  of  the  past.  The 
aspiring  young  American  sees  in  this  a  great 
hope  for  himself  and  a  prospect  of  indefinite 
usefulness  for  humanity.  He  groups  himself 
with  his  own  sort,  and  is  made  enthusiastic 
by  a  continued  succession  of  new  possibilities 
and  the  contagion  of  sympathetic  association. 
Nothing  that  we  can  say  ought  to  reduce  by  a 
single  atom  this  enthusiasm.  It  is  essential  to 
all  worthy  progress  in  all  fields. 

But  essential  as  this  scientific  development 
is  to  our  democracy  it  is  not  correct  to  say 
that  it  is  all-inclusive.  The  learning  of  the 
ages  will  still  have  a  place.  The  results  of 
the  old  discipline  must  still  be  gained.  It  was 
no  mere  accident  that  out  of  the  colonial  colleges, 
meagre  as  the  contents  of  their  curricula  were, 
came  so  largely  the  men  of  practical  wisdom 
who  framed  the  constitution  and  shaped  the  in- 
stitutions which   have   made  America.      It  is 


The  Function  of  the  College  195 

not  so  much  the  schools  of  technology  and  of 
professional  training  as  the  colleges  of  general 
learning  that,  produce  the  great  leaders  of  our 
nation  to-day.  They  develop  the  two  elements 
commonly  known  as  discipline  and  culture,  the 
one  a  power  to  do,  the  other  a  possession  at- 
tained. He  who  has  them  both  is  likely  to 
succeed  in  whatever  direction  he  works.  They 
come  in  their  best  estate  as  the  result  of  no 
narrow,  specialized  course  with  a  mercenary 
object  continually  in  view,  but  rather  as  the 
result  of  a  generous  training  in  the  broad  field  of 
higher  learning  which  is  the  exclusive  possession 
of  no  nation  and  no  age. 

Here  again  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that 
the  Greek  and  Latin  languages  are  essential  to 
this  result.  They  had  no  large  place  from  the 
decay  of  Roman  civilization  to  the  Renaissance. 
Erasmus  and  Thomas  More  and  their  friends 
brought  them  to  light  as  the  new  learning  of 
their  day.  By  the  transformation  of  thought 
they  have  now  become  the  refuge  of  the  ex- 
treme conservatives.  It  is  the  spirit  and  the 
power  of  intellectual  effort  pursued  for  their 
own  sakes  rather  than  their  value  as  wage- 
earners  that  determines  the  worth  of  scholar- 
ship from  this  point  of  view.     The  content  of 


196  The  American  College 

the  study  changes  somewhat  from  age  to  age, 
but  the  appreciation  of  scholarly  character  and 
good  literature  may  be  permanent.  This  ap- 
preciation often  comes  through  the  classics.  At 
present  they  probably  constitute  the  surest  road 
to  it,  though  not  the  only  one.  The  marvellous 
modern  insight  that  physical  science,  psychol- 
ogy, and  sociology  have  given  to  true  devel- 
opment demands  large  recognition  in  general 
college  courses,  as  also  does  the  worth  of  the 
study  of  European  languages.  With  the  opening 
of  new  intellectual  vistas  the  subjects  of  student 
effort  will  vary,  but  the  spirit  of  Hebrew  and 
Grecian  scholarship  should  remain. 

We  have  seen  that  the  colonial  colleges  owed 
their  origin  to  a  denominational  want,  and  that 
the  great  majority  of  separate  colleges  of  the 
present  day,  mostly  small  in  numbers,  are  still 
connected,  in  name  at  least,  with  some  branch 
of  the  Christian  Church.  As  the  pubHc  schools, 
including  the  state  universities,  are  largely 
prohibited  from  giving  any  religious  instruc- 
tion, the  independent  colleges  constitute  the 
main  educational  opportunities  for  this  work. 
As  such  they  have  a  large  field  to  occupy.  In 
early  times  piety  was  enjoined  by  rule.  The 
first  colonial  colleges,  mainly  theological  institu- 


The  Function  of  the  College  197 

tions  as  they  were,  required  semi-daily  prayers 
and  private  Bible  reading.  After  the  Revolu- 
tion, when  French  influence  became  prevalent, 
the  student  demanded  hberty,  and  this  meant 
in  many  cases  scepticism  and  indifference.  At 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  not  more 
than  5  per  cent,  of  the  college  students  would 
own  themselves  Christians.  As  far  as  they  dared 
they  absented  themselves  from  all  religious  exer- 
cises. 

Enforced  religion  could  not  be  made  to 
succeed,  and  during  the  following  century  there 
was  a  gradual  relaxation  of  rules,  and  a  con- 
sequent increase  of  sincerity  and  piety.  Volun- 
tary association  largely  took  the  place  of  the 
prescribed  formula  of  the  past.  The  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  during  the  latter  part  of  last  century  has 
developed  in  a  marked  degree  in  the  colleges  a 
sane  and  serious  sense  of  the  student's  responsi- 
bilities to  God  and  man.  Though  not  organi- 
cally connected  with  the  governing  boards,  as 
individuals  many  of  the  officials  have  taken 
part  with  cordial  welcome  from  the  student. 
But  the  responsibihty  of  managenient  and  direc- 
tion rests  with  the  students  themselves,  and 
produces  results  more  natural,  more  human,  and 
more  serviceable. 


198  The  American  College 

But  the  college  still  has  an  influence  over 
student  religious  life.  She  supplies  in  her  chapel 
and  Sunday  exercises  opportunities  for  worship 
and  for  religious  instruction  of  great  potency. 
In  many  the  chapel  constitutes  the  one  occasion 
of  the  week  when  the  whole  body  of  the  students 
is  brought  together.  It  tends  to  create  a  sense 
of  unity  and  also  affords  an  opportunity  for 
needed  announcements  and  instructions.  But 
primarily  it  is  successful  from  the  religious  point 
of  view,  as  these  uses  are  made  subsidiary  to  its 
main  purpose;  as  there  is  an  atmosphere  of 
quietness  and  reverence  about  the  meeting,  and 
as  the  vocal  exercises  are  brief  and  impressive. 

In  the  large  majority  of  colleges  attendance 
at  collections  of  students  is  required,  with  an 
allowance  of  "cuts."  A  hymn,  a  Bible  reading, 
a  prayer,  and  sometimes  a  short  address  con- 
stitute the  program,  occupying  twenty  minutes 
or  less.  They  were  originally  always  held  at 
the  beginning  of  the  daily  exercises,  but  in  many 
colleges  are  now  placed  later  in  the  day,  to 
accommodate  students  from  a  distance.  The 
personality  of  the  men  who  conduct  them  has 
everything  to  do  with  their  effectiveness.  One 
toward  whom  on  account  of  his  life  or  character 
no  respect  is  felt  will  make  a  religious  occasion 


The  Function  of  the  College  199 

only  a  travesty,  no  matter  how  profound  and 
well-expressed  his  utterances  may  be.  Toward 
a  simple-minded,  sincere  man  of  weight  and 
power  there  will  always  be  accorded  attention 
and  influence.  Many  a  man's  future  has  been 
indelibly  stamped  by  the  chapel  exercises  of  his 
college,  and  not  a  few  can  remember  some  im- 
pressive sentence  from  an  honored  preacher  or 
teacher  which  has  stayed  with  them  as  a  guide 
through  life. 

The  Sunday  college  exercises  are  more  formal 
and  extensive.  In  the  large  universities  the  ten- 
dency is  to  make  attendance  voluntary.  Indeed 
the  most  of  them  possess  no  hall  large  enough  to 
seat  all  their  members.  At  Yale  the  academic 
students  attend,  the  scientific  students  do  not. 
In  some  places  attendance  at  some  place  of  wor- 
ship, to  be  determined  by  each  student,  is  re- 
quired. But  it  is  usually  preferred  to  bring 
them  together  in  one  hall  where  a  service  adapted 
to  their  needs  may  be  provided. 

In  many  colleges  a  program  of  preachers  is 
arranged  at  the  beginning  of  the  year.  The 
students  thus  have  the  chance  to  hear  many 
noted  men  who  successively  occupy  the  pulpit. 
Many  a  preacher  who  has  large  success  in  a 
general  congregation  is  quite  unable  to  hold  the 


200  The  American  College 

attention  of  a  student  audience  on  account  of 
some  misdirection  of  thought  or  affectation  or 
crudity  of  manner.  Any  touch  of  insincerity, 
or  vagueness  of  idea,  or  commonplace,  is  quickly 
detected  and  weighed  in  the  balance. 

Courses  in  the  Bible  are  now  frequently  in- 
cluded in  the  curricula  of  colleges.  Freshmen 
often  come  with  a  very  inaccurate  knowledge  of 
Biblical  facts.  In  many  cases  they  are  quite 
Ignorant.  If  they  are  from  pubHc  schools,  no 
instruction  has  there  been  given  them.  What 
they  have  picked  up  has  come  from  their  homes, 
their  church  services,  and  their  Sunday-schools. 
The  first  of  these  greatly  varies  in  efficiency,  is 
usually  superficial,  or  non-existent.  The  church 
services  do  not  reach  nearly  all  and  h^ve  their 
effect  only  by  the  reading  of  isolated  passages. 
The  Sunday-school,  with  voluntary  attendance, 
absence  of  rigid  tests  demanding  preparation  and 
often  inexperienced  teachers,  is  desultory  and  un- 
satisfactory as  a  means  of  instruction  however 
valuable  it  may  be  for  its  general  influence.  The 
ideas  gained  are  often  indefinite  and  confused  as 
illustrated  by  the  story  of  the  little  boy  who  said 
that  "Paul  stood  on  Mars  Hill  crying  out  for  the 
space  of  two  hours,  'Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephe- 
sians,* "  or  multitudes  of  similar  instances.     If  it 


The  Function  of  the  College  201 

were  proposed  to  teach  arithmetic  or  geography 
by  such  methods  they  would  immediately  be  pro- 
nounced inadequate  and  the  results  disastrous. 

If  therefore  the  intelligent  leaders  of  our 
democracy  are  to  receive  a  solid  training  in 
Christian  foundations  and  a  knowledge  of 
Christian  principle  and  Hterature,  it  must  come 
very  largely  from  the  colleges  not  under  state 
control. 

It  is  probable  that  in  many  cases  they  have 
not  embraced  this  opportunity  very  efficiently. 
Courses  in  the  Bible  have  often  not  ranked  in 
importance  and  in  the  scholarly  quality  of  the 
teachers  with  languages  and  science.  But  there 
is  of  late  a  strong  tendency  to  make  them  more 
influential.  Whether  required  or  optional  they 
are  taken  more  seriously,  and  the  content  and 
spirit  of  the  Bible  are  more  firmly  grasped. 

Some  such  courses  have  failed  because  too 
much  stress  has  been  laid  upon  a  dogmatic  in- 
terpretation dear  to  the  heart  of  the  teacher;  or 
because  of  an  insistence  on  too  great  literalism, 
the  emphasis  being  laid  upon  special  texts  apart 
from  their  context;  or  because  of  an  exclusively 
destructive  import  by  a  fresh  graduate  which 
leaves  the  student  with  no  ideas  except  that  the 
book  is  a  bundle  of  errors.     It  is  of  course  a 


202  The  American  College 

difficult  matter  to  find  a  scholarly,  devout,  and 
progressive  man  who  will  handle  the  questions 
certain  to  arise  in  such  a  way  as  to  disarm 
criticism  and  promote  an  intelligent  compre- 
hension of  the  real  worth  and  power  of  the  book. 
But  the  alternative  is  a  generation  of  scholars 
unable  to  appreciate  the  thousands  of  Biblical 
references  in  our  hterature,  the  multitudes  of 
ways  in  which  Biblical  ideas  have  interwoven 
themselves  with  our  civilization,  and  without 
the  ethical  and  spiritual  standards  which  have 
characterized  our  nation  and  other  advanced 
nations  in  the  past. 

These  considerations  are  being  increasingly  felt 
by  our  colleges.  Great  associations  are  formed 
to  promote  religious  education.  New  courses 
are  being  introduced  into  the  colleges,  and  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  study  of  the  Bible  is  becoming 
more  efficient.  With  the  tendency  to  crowd 
out  of  all  public  institutions  all  such  instruction 
its  last  refuge  seems  to  be  the  denominational  and 
endowed  colleges  of  the  country,  and  they  are 
more  and  more  preparing  to  meet  the  demand. 

From  figures  recently  procured  it  appears 
that  out  of  92,000  students  in  over  400  of  the 
better  colleges,  16,000  are  in  curriculum  Bible 
work;  183   of  these  colleges  offer  Biblical  in- 


The  Function  of  the  College  203 

struction,  and  in  112  this  instruction  is  obhga- 
tory.  There  were  32,880  young  men  in  the 
Bible  classes  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A;  257  fraternities 
have  introduced  Bible  study,  and  1,277  members 
of  the  faculty  have  cooperated. 

We  have  already  considered  the  question  of 
students'  morals.  How  far  the  formal  teach- 
ing of  ethics  has  an  effect  on  this  is  doubtful. 
Courses  on  philosophical  and  practical  ethics 
are  given  in  most  colleges.  The  latter  more 
often  deal  with  the  duties  which  the  graduate 
may  have  to  perform  in  the  world  than  with 
conditions  in  the  college  itself.  It  is  well  that 
they  should.  There  is  no  more  potent  incentive 
to  a  good  life  than  the  growth  of  a  desire  to 
make  that  life  worth  while  to  some  good  effort. 
Interest  in  the  social,  moral,  and  religious  con- 
ditions of  the  community  ought  to  insure  a 
course  of  conduct  which  will  best  prepare  the 
student  for  meeting  effectively  those  condi- 
tions. Some  unselfish  aspirations  are  a  better 
tonic  than  formal  rules  or  repressive  advice.  A 
professor  of  well-known  high  ideals  of  living,  and 
a  tactful  personality  in  dealing  fearlessly  and 
sanely  with  moral  habits  and  causes,  is  the  indis- 
pensable agent  in  the  teaching  of  practical  ethics. 

With  our  beneficent,  democratic  idea  of  giving 


204  The  American  College 

every  one  a  chance  at  the  best  in  education,  it 
often  happens  that  a  youth  of  slender  patrimony 
and  meagre  antecedents  finds  himself  as  the 
result  of  some  reading  or  lecture  or  other  in- 
fluence seized  with  a  desire  for  a  college  education. 
It  is  said  that  in  certain  sections  of  the  country, 
when  the  boys  arrive  at  a  given  age,  the  farmer 
father  gives  them  the  choice  between  a  horse 
and  buggy  and  an  "education,"  the  latter 
meaning  a  year  at  a  local  academy.  The  most 
of  them  choose  the  tangible  evidence  of  material 
prosperity.  Occasionally  one  will  ask  for  the 
education.  The  year  does  not  usually  stand 
alone.  The  youth  begins  to  see  the  possibilities 
of  a  life  to  which  his  father  and  his  associates 
have  been  strangers.  It  does  not  take  much  to 
gratify  this  desire.  Some  hard  work  in  the 
summer  time,  another  year  or  two  at  a  high 
school,  and  he  is  intellectually  ready  for  college. 
A  college  scholarship  rather  easily  won,  remuner- 
ative work  in  vacations  and  during  term  time, 
and  the  way  is  paved  for  a  degree.  Ameri- 
can boys  do  this  by  the  thousands,  and  their 
early  conquest  of  difficulties  brings  out  the  best 
that  is  in  them.  Many  a  strong  man  has  had 
this  early  history. 

The  possibilities  which  may  lie  in  the  path  of 


The  Function  of  the  College  205 

a  young  man  of  energy  and  resources  may  be 
seen  in  the  Autobiography  of  S.  S.  McClure.* 
As  he  entered  upon  his  work  at  Knox  College, 
Illinois,  with  15  cents  in  his  pocket,  with  one 
home-made  suit  of  clothes,  and  seven  years 
of  preparatory  and  college  education  and  board 
to  pay  for  by  his  own  exertions,  there  would  be 
needed  enthusiasm,  courage,  and  some  ignor- 
ance of  difficulties  ahead  of  him  to  carry  him 
through.  "There  are  few  feelings  any  deeper 
than  those  with  which  a  country  boy  gazes  for 
the  first  time  upon  the  college  that  he  feels  is 
going  to  supply  all  the  deficiencies  he  feels  in 
himself  and  fit  him  to  struggle  in  the  world,"  he 
writes.  The  seven  years  stretched  out  to 
eight,  for  he  had  to  absent  himself  to  work  for 
money.  He  endured  all  sorts  of  privations  of 
hunger  and  cold,  and  felt  somewhat  disappointed 
on  graduation  that  he  could  recognize  himself 
as  the  same  boy  who  had  entered.  But  he 
triumphed,  as  many  another  young  American 
has  triumphed,  and  learned  later  in  Hfe  that  the 
college  opportunity  had  placed  the  means  of 
success  within  his  grasp.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  his  retrospect  of  his  studies: 

*"My  Autobiography,"  by   S.  S.   McCIure.     (Frederick  A. 
Stokes  Co.,  New  York.) 


2o6  The  American  College 

"A  word  about  the  college  curriculum.  Four 
fifths  of  the  students  at  Knox  then  took  the  old- 
fashioned  classical  course,  in  which  Greek  was 
obligatory.  This  course  still  seems  to  me  the 
soundest  preparation  a  young  man  can  have, 
and  I  still  feel  that  Greek  was  the  most  im- 
portant of  my  studies.  During  the  years  that 
he  reads  and  studies  Greek  a  boy  gets  certain 
standards  that  he  uses  all  the  rest  of  his  life, 
long  after  he  has  forgotten  grammar  and  vocab- 
ulary." 

Yet  it  may  have  been  the  conquest  of  diffi- 
culties, intellectual  and  physical,  rather  than 
the  special  studies,  which  developed  the  charac- 
ter and  qualities  of  his  later  success. 

But  such  a  youth  has  come  to  college  crude  and 
socially  uneducated.  He  will  manage  to  take  care 
of  himself  intellectually  and  morally.  But  it  will 
be  a  new  social  atmosphere  into  which  he  will 
come.  The  young  man  from  a  cultured  home 
will  be  a  revelation  to  him.  He  may  con- 
sider this  well-to-do  brother  soft  and  inefficient 
in  some  ways,  but  he  will  acknowledge  that  he 
possesses  some  graces  and  powers  to  be  coveted. 
He  sets  himself  to  procure  them  and  often 
succeeds.  Thus  the  American  college  becomes 
a  social  educator  and  unifier.     In  no  place  is 


The  Function  of  the  College  207 

there  a  fairer  recognition  of  merit  apart  from  ex- 
ternals. In  no  other  sphere  is  a  man  of  an  un- 
promising past  more  sure  of  being  a  hero  if  he 
possess  heroic  qualities. 

The  spectre  which  often  haunts  the  Presi- 
dent and  Trustees  of  the  small  college  is  poverty. 
They  see  their  best  and  most  promising  men 
drawn  off  by  larger  offers  of  salary.  They  con- 
template with  sadness  the  paucity  of  their 
library  whenever  they  read  a  publisher's  an- 
nouncement of  forthcoming  books  of  value. 
They  see  perhaps  with  envy  the  large  equip- 
ment for  science  of  the  great  universities.  They 
have  in  their  minds  or  on  paper  fine  buildings 
which  they  feel  must  be  built,  and  the  money  is 
not  forthcoming. 

The  matter  of  salaries*  will,  if  they  are  right- 
minded,  distress  the  most.  For  while  salaries 
of  all  teachers  are  small  compared  with  the  im- 
portance of  their  work  and  the  time  demanded 
for  preparation,  they  are  on  an  advancing  scale 

*There  are  about  200  full  professors  in  the  United  States  with 
salaries  of  ^5,000  or  over;  about  as  many  from  $4,000  to  $5,000; 
about  500  from  $3,000  to  $4,000.  Salaries  of  all  grades  are 
rising  of  late.  Williams,  a  typical  college,  expects  to  pay  all 
full  professors  $4,000, 

"Of  1,500  representative  full  professors,  one  fourth  receive 
$2,250  or  less;  one  fourth,  $3,750  or  more,  and  one  tenth,  $5,000 
or  more.  All  salaries  have  increased  durmg  the  last  five  years." 
— Dr.  Pritchett  in  "Carnegie  Foundation  Report,  1913." 


2o8  The  American  College 

in  the  more  wealthy  institutions.  In  the  large 
endowed  universities  the  salary  of  a  full  pro- 
fessor may  be  from  ^4,000  to  $5,000,  with  the 
lower  ranks  proportionally  paid.  In  many 
smaller  colleges  the  salary  of  a  full  professor 
would  be  $2,500  or  less,  running  down  in  some 
cases  to  three  figures.  In  the  long  run  the 
service  will  be  as  the  salary.  For  while  some 
strong  men  in  a  true  spirit  of  devotion  will 
spend  their  lives  for  the  college  of  their  love 
they  may  not  have  successors  of  the  same  mind. 
And  while  some  men  who  have  $1,000  will  do 
better  work  than  others  at  $2,000,  it  will  not 
be  so  in  general. 

The  residents  of  the  large  universities,  both 
state  and  endowed,  often  speak  rather  slight- 
ingly of  the  small  **  fresh-water  "  colleges.  Some 
of  them  are  undoubtedly  inefficient  and  a  few 
dishonest.  Someof  them  make  impossible  claims 
for  themselves  either  through  self-deception 
or  with  the  intent  to  deceive  others.  But 
many  are  the  results  of  great  self-sacrifice  and 
are  struggling  for  better  things  with  the  heroism 
that  comes  from  an  assurance  that  their  aims 
are  worthy.  Some  need  every  fee  and  the  pres- 
tige of  every  name  to  insure  growth  into  pros- 
perity, and  unduly  strain  their  pretensions  to 


The  Function  of  the  College  209 

capability.  Some  act  as  if  numbers  were  the 
only  test  of  worth,  and  exalt  them  at  the  ex- 
pense of  quality.  Some  give  degrees  to  un- 
worthy recipients  to  receive  in  return  patronage 
or  money,  and  some  have  grown  through  one  or 
all  of  these  stages  into  assured  soHdity  and  effi- 
ciency which  need  no  dubious  methods. 

One  cannot  say  too  much  for  the  men  who 
have  founded,  and  the  men  who  have  worked  in, 
many  of  our  smaller  denominational  colleges. 
Their  motives  have  been  the  purest  and  their 
sacrifices  the  most  real.  Giving  of  their  little 
year  after  year,  and  stinting  themselves  of  the 
comforts  of  life  for  the  institution  to  which  they 
had  pledged  their  support,  they  have  often  seen 
the  success  of  their  hopes.  Sometimes  it  has 
seemed  to  be  worry  and  effort  thrown  away. 
But  on  the  whole  they  have  dotted  the  land 
with  many,  too  many  in  some  sections,  colleges 
which  have  had  a  large  and  beneficent  influence 
upon  American  life.  In  Ohio  over  one  hundred 
colleges  and  universities  have  been  chartered, 
more  than  sixty  of  which  no  longer  survive, 
and  of  the  forty,  twenty-three  are  still  organi- 
cally connected  with  a  denomination.  Some- 
thing like  this  condition  exists  over  the  country. 
It  would  doubtless  be  better  for  the  cause  of 


210  The  American  College 

education  if  denominational  feeling  would  per- 
mit the  merging  of  many  of  the  resources  of 
neighboring  colleges  into  a  few  strong  institu- 
tions. 

"The  widest  variation  exists  in  the  institu- 
tions caHing  themselves  universities  or  colleges. 
It  is  possible  thus  to  trace  the  course  of  effi- 
ciency through  uncounted  gradations  from  these 
pathetic  embryo  colleges  up  to  admirably  suc- 
cessful and  solid  institutions,  not  to  mention 
the  great  state-supported  institutions  the  tide 
of  whose  annual  resources  have  passed  the  two- 
million-dollar  mark. 

"More  and  more  each  church  has  in  recent 
years  worked  wisely  and  fruitfully  for  improv- 
ing the  standards  of  its  denominational  institu- 
tions. One  may  count  with  admiration  the 
steps  upward  which  have  been  made  by  [many] 
colleges.'** 

Many  of  these  small  colleges  have  had  one  or 
two  men  in  each  who  have  been  really  great 
in  their  character,  scholarship,  and  influence. 
They  may  not  have  been  of  the  "productive'* 
sort  which  the  large  universities  value  so  highly. 
They  may  not  have  been  offered  more  lucrative 

*  Dr.  Kendric  C.  Babcock,  late  specialist  in  higher  education 
with  theU.  S.  Bureau  of  Education,  in  "Proceedings  of  Board  of 
Education  of  the  United  Presbyterian  Church,  Chicago,  1914.'* 


The  Function  of  the  College  211 

places  elsewhere,  or  if  so  may  have  declined 
them.  But  they  have  felt  a  real  satisfaction 
in  their  modest  sphere  and  in  their  permanent 
power  over  a  small  number  of  young  people  who 
have  learned  to  come  very  close  to  them  in  spirit 
and  in  truth. 

Not  a  few  of  these  detached  colleges  gather 
students  who  would  not  go  elsewhere.  The 
college  of  their  own  town  or  of  their  own  sect  will 
receive  their  patronage  when  they  would  not 
think  of  going  to  a  distant  or  alien  university. 
They  get  into  the  college  atmosphere.  They 
become  acquainted  with  the  professors  or  the 
students.  They  attend  the  public  lectures, 
their  educational  zeal  becomes  fired,  and  before 
they  know  it  almost,  they  are  in  college  them- 
selves. Once  there,  anything  is  possible.  If 
they  have  the  spirit  of  the  scholar,  they  will 
later  seek  larger  opportunities  elsewhere,  always, 
if  their  first  alma  mater  has  been  honest  with 
them,  looking  back  to  her  work  for  them  with 
gratitude  and  affection.  How  many  such  there 
are  no  statistics  have  ever  told,  but  many  a  man 
and  woman  have  had  such  a  school  history  and  in 
the  aggregate  their  influence  in  the  country  for 
scholarship  and  progress  has  been  very  large. 
These  small   colleges   have   carried   the   desire 


212  The  American  College 

for  higher  education  into  every  corner  of  our 
land. 

More  emphatically,  too,  than  the  universities, 
the  best  of  them  have  stood  for  rehgious  charac- 
ter and  for  correct  morals;  for  a  certain  sim- 
plicity and  honesty  of  purpose;  for  a  respect 
for  learning  and  what  it  may  bring  with  it;  for 
a  great  feeling  of  responsibility  to  make  of  their 
students  in  all  directions  all  that  they  are 
capable  of  being;  and  for  a  strong  sense  of 
democracy  and  fraternity. 


THE    END 


BRIEF  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Reports  of  the  Commissioners  of  Education  of 
the  United  States,  1867  to  date. 

Reports  of  the  President  of  the  Carnegie  Founda- 
tion for  the  Advancement  of  Teaching,  1906  to  date. 

Reports  of  the  Secretary  of  the  College  Entrance 
Examination  Board,  1900  to  date. 

Proceedings  of  the  National  Educational  Asso- 
ciation. 

Reports  of  Presidents  of  Various  Colleges,  notably 
of  President  C.  W.  Eliot. 

Catalogues  of  Colleges,  past  and  present. 

Josiah   Quincy,   The    History   of  Harvard   Uni- 
versity, 2  vols.,  Cambridge,  1840. 

Herbert  B.  Adams,  The  College  of  William  and 
Mary,  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  1888. 

F.    B.    Dexter,   Sketch   of  the   History  of  Yale 
University,  Holt,  New  York,  1887. 

V.  Lansing  Collins,  Princeton,  Oxford  University 
Press,  New  York,  1914. 

T.  H.  Montgomery,  History  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  2  vols.,  Philadelphia,  1900. 

A  History  of  Columbia  University,   1 754-1904 
New  York,  1904. 

Bronson's,  History  of  Brown  University. 

Rutgers  College,  1766-1911,  New  Brunswick. 
\  313 


214  The  American  College 

Chase's,  History  of  Dartmouth  College,  Vol.  I, 
I 769-1 815. 

W.  Smith,  Discourses  on  Public  Occasions  in 
America,  Appendix,  second  edition,  London,  1762. 

Thomas  Jefferson  and  J.  C.  Cabell,  Early  History 
of  the  University  of  Virginia,  Richmond,  1856. 

Herbert  B.  Adams,  Thomas  Jefferson,  and  the 
University  of  Virginia,  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Education, 
1888. 

E.  G.  Dexter,  History  of  Education  in  the  United 
States,  Macmillan,  1904. 

C.  F.  Thwing,  History  of  Higher  Education  in 
America,  Appleton,  1906. 

C.  W.  Eliot,  University  Administration,  Hough- 
ton, Mifflin  &  Co.,  1908. 

C.  F.  Thwing,  College  Administration,  Century 
Company,  1900. 

W.  T.  Foster,  Administration  of  the  College 
Curriculum,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  191 1. 

C.  F.  Thwing,  The  American  College,  New  York, 
1914. 

Henry  D.  Sheldon,  Student  Life  and  Customs, 
Appleton,    1901. 

J.  H.  Canfield,  The  College  Student  and  His 
Problems,  Macmillan,  1902. 

C.  F.  Birdseye,  The  Reorganization  of  Our  Col- 
leges, New  York,  1909. 

C.  M.  Gayley,  Idols  of  Education,  Doubleday, 
Page   &   Co.,    1 910. 

Noah  Porter,  The  American  Colleges  and  the 
American  Public,  New  York,  1883. 


Brief  Bibliography  215 

Charles  Francis  Adams,  A  College  Fetich,  Boston, 
1893. 

James  McCosh,  The  New  Departure  in  College 
Education,  New  York,  1885. 

Oberlin  College,  Reports  of  the  Committee  on 
Tests  of  College  Efficiency,  1910. 

Various  periodicals,  especially  Educational  Re- 
view^ Science,  and  Popular  Science  Monthly, 


INDEX 

.     PAGE 

Academic  freedom 57 

Administration 44 

Age  of  admission  to  college 52 

Alumni 89 

American  Athletic  Association 163 

Amherst  College 30 

Athletics 156 

Baptists 18 

Baseball 162 

Bible  study           200 

Bibliography 213 

Brown,  Nicholas 20 

Brown  University 18 

Bowdoin  College 26,  118 

Bryn  Mawr  College 112 

Calvinism 6 

Cambridge  University,  England 6 

Carnegie,  Andrew 76 

Chapel  exercises 198 

College,  Definition  of 46 

College  entrance  examination  board        ....  102 

Columbia  University 17 

Cornell  University 33 

Courses  of  study 27,  94 

Curriculum,  see  Courses  of  study. 
217 


2i8  Ind 


ex 


PAGE 

Dartmouth  College        21 

Degrees 8,  23,  47,  176 

Denominationalism 19,  179 

Dickinson  College 26 

Discipline 135 

Dutch  Reformed  Church 20 

Edwards,  Morgan 19 

Elective  system 29,  33,  40,  109 

Eligibility  rules  for  athletics 163 

Eliot,  Charles  W 33j  no 

Endowment 48,  49,  50 

Entrance  examinations .  102    \ 

Entrance  requirements 94 

Examinations,  see  Honor  system  in  examinations. 

Faculty 45»  57>  76 

Field  sports 162 

Financial  aid  to  colleges 74 

Football 158 

Franklin,  Benjamin 15 

Fraternities 152 

"Fresh-water"  colleges 208 

Function  of  the  college 175 

German  universities 39 

Governing  boards  of  colleges 45 

Graduate  schools 41 

Greek  letter  societies,  see  Fraternities. 

Group  system iii 

Hamilton,  Alexander 18 

Hampton  Sidney  College 26 

Harvard,  John 4,  6 


Index  219 

PAGE 

Harvard  University 4,  109 

Haverford  College    ." 115 

Hazing 168 

Honor  system  in  examinations 143 

Indians 21 

Jay,  John 18 

Jefferson,  Thomas 9>  28 

Johns  Hopkins  University 41,  52,  iii 

Journalism,  see  Student  papers 

King's  College,  New  York,  see  Columbia  University. 

Liberal  education.  Definition  of 185 

Literary  societies 152 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot 182 

**Log  College" 13 

McClure,  S.  S 205 

Madison,  James 15 

Marshall,  John 9 

Ministers .1,  5,  9 

Monroe,  James 9 

Moral  life  of  college  students        ....        146,  203 

Morrill  act 35 

Morris,  Gouvernor 18 

Nassau  Hall 14 

New  England's  First  Fruits 26 

North  Carolina,  University  of 26 

North  Central  Association  of  Colleges  and  Second- 
ary Schools 50 

Northfield  conferences 150 


220  Index 

PAGE 

Patrons  of  the  college 69 

Pennsylvania,  University  of 15 

Ph.  D 47,  80 

Phi  Beta  Kappa 152 

Preceptorial  system 117 

Presbyterians 12 

President 61 

Princeton  University    . 12 

Professional  schools 23,  44,  53 

Professors,  see  Faculty. 

Queen's  College,  New  Jersey,  see  Rutgers  College. 

Regents,  see  Governing  boards. 

Religion  in  the  colleges 196 

Research 40 

Rhodes  scholars 105 

Rockefeller,  John  D 76 

Rutgers  College 20 

St.  John's  College 26 

Salaries  of  professors 207 

Sc.D 47 

Scholarship 105,  175 

Scotch-Irish 13 

Self-government,   see   Student  government. 
Smith,  William,  Provost  of  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania  16,  27 

Sports,  see  Athletics. 

State  aid  to  colleges      . 34 

Student  government 141 

Student  hfe 135 

Student  papers 166 


Index  221 

PAGE 

Tennent,  William 13 

Ticknor,  George 30 

Track  athletics 162 

Trustees,   see   Governing   boards. 

Tyler,  John 9 

Union  College 26 

University,  Definition  of 44 

Virginia,  University  of 28 

Washington  and  Jefferson  College 26 

Washington  and  Lee  College         26 

Webster,  Daniel 22 

Wheelock,  Eleazar 21 

White,  Andrew  D 180 

William  and  Mary  College 8,  152 

Williams  College 26 

Women's  colleges 187 

Yale,  Elihu .       11 

Yale  University 10,  no 

Young  Men's  Christian  Association         .      .        149,  197 


A  WORD  ABOUT 
THE  AMERICAN  BOOKS 


The  American  Books 

A  Library  of  Good  Citizenship 

TO  vote  regularly  and  conscientiously  and 
never  to  have  been  arrested  for  disorder 
is  not  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  good  citi- 
zenship. The  good  citizen  is  he  or  she  who  bears 
an  active  hand  in  cleansing  and  making  merry 
the  black  spots  of  the  neighborhood;  who  cher- 
ishes a  home  however  small;  who  takes  an 
increasingly  intelligent  interest  in  all  that  con- 
tributes to  the  country's  welfare,  and  feels  a 
keenly  patriotic  hope  for  the  future  of  the  nation. 

For  such  citizens  the  American  books  are 
designed — a  series  of  small  volumes  on  current 
American  problems.  The  keynote  of  the  series 
will  be  the  discussion  of  distinctively  American 
movements  and  questions  connected  with  the 
future  prosperity  of  the  United  States. 

The  series  was  planned  long  before  the  great 
war,  but  it  has  derived  added  importance  from 
the  position  which  that  great  struggle  has  given 
America  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  The  United 
States,  standing  aloof  from  the  suicidal  blood- 
shed of  the  Old  World,  has  necessarily  become 
the  peaceful  arbiter  of  the  earth's  destinies  and 
the  flywheel  to  keep  the  world's  industry  re- 
volving. 


An  inquiry  into  the  meaning  and  tendency  of 
American  civilization  to-day  is  thus  not  only  a 
matter  of  interest  but  of  patriotic  duty.  The 
pubHshers  wish  the  American  books  to  be  a 
series  of  brief,  authoritative  manuals  which  will 
attempt  to  lay  bare  some  of  the  problems  that 
confront  us  to-day;  written  in  popular  terms  that 
will  inspire  rather  than  discourage  the  casual 
reader.  The  series  should  prove  not  only  of 
great  interest  to  all  American  citizens  who  wish 
to  aid  in  solving  their  country's  pressing  prob- 
lems, but  to  every  foreigner  visiting  this  country 
who  seeks  an  interpretation  of  the  American 
point  of  view. 

The  publishers  wish  the  American  books  to 
be  written  by  the  best  men,  and  to  this  end  they 
seek  the  widest  publicity  for  the  plan.  They 
will  be  glad  to  receive  suggestions  as  to  appro- 
priate titles  for  inclusion  in  the  series  and  will 
welcome  authoritative  MSS  submitted  from  any 
quarter.  In  particular  they  submit  the  plan  to 
the  consideration  of  the  American  colleges  where 
the  problems  of  the  country  are  being  studied. 
In  science,  literature,  business,  politics,  in  the 
arts  of  war  and  the  arts  of  peace,  the  publishers 
will  seek  writers  who  have  stood  for  fearless 
achievement  or  equally  fearless  failure,  who  will 
build  up  A  Library  of  Good  Citizenship. 

{For   complete  list  of  volumes  in 
this  series  see  opposite  title  page,) 


THE  COUNTRY   LIFE   PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


I 


z. 


YB  0A4H 


306823 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


